Rationale Update for Ada 2012

John Barnes
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Chapter 8: Containers

The container library was considerably enhanced in Ada 2012. A few issues have arisen since.
The following Ada Issues cover this area:
35
Accessibility checks for indefinite elements of containers
69
Inconsistency in Tree container definition
78
Definition of node for tree container is confusing
110
Tampering checks are performed first
These changes can be grouped as follows.
AI-69 and AI-78 both address the same issue regarding the fact that the root node of a tree has no element.
AI-35 concerns problems with accessibility checks necessary to prevent dangling references when using the indefinite containers.
AI-110 addresses the question of when tampering checks are performed.

It is fundamental to the organization of trees that each node of the tree has an associated element containing a value except the root node which has no such associated element. Both AI-69 and AI-78 make various corrections to the wording such as to point out that an iterator never visits the root node.
AI-35 addresses the question of accessibility checks when manipulating indefinite containers (these containers were introduced in Ada 2005). Certain operations of instances of the indefinite container packages require accessibility checks to prevent dangling references. The term "perform indefinite insertion" is defined and then this is used in the description of the various operations. Thus in the case of Indefinite_Doubly_Linked_Lists we are told that Append, Insert, Prepend, and Replace_Element that have a parameter of the Element_Type perform indefinite insertion.
AI-110 concerns the order of making various checks. The conclusion is that tampering checks are always performed before any other checks such as that for capacity.

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