Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cbmvax!uunet!pdn!alan From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2 Subject: Re: more about ORD and VAL Message-ID: <3650@pdn.UUCP> Date: 6 Jul 88 15:08:50 GMT References: <3638@pdn.UUCP> <8807051419.AA05623@banzai-inst.sw.mcc.com> Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy) Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida Lines: 19 In article <8807051419.AA05623@banzai-inst.sw.mcc.com> Info-Modula2 Distribution Listwrites: >This still leaves me wondering what a "meaning-preserving" conversion is for > CAST(CARDINAL, -1) >What value would you expect to get back? >--Alan Wexelblat >ARPA: WEX@MCC.COM >UUCP: {harvard, gatech, pyramid, &c.}!sally!im4u!milano!wex According to Barry Cornelius's posting on the subject, the BSI proposal currently on the table is "CONVERT(CARDINAL, -1)" as the syntax for a "meaning-preserving" conversion. In this case the "value" is an exception. What an "exception" is, is formally undefined. It is expected to be either a no-op, a program abort or a trap to a debugging tool. -- Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-8241; Paradyne Corporation: Largo, Florida. Disclaimer: Do not confuse my views with the official views of Paradyne Corporation (regardless of how confusing those views may be). Motto: Never put off to run-time what you can do at compile-time!