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7.4 Deferred Constants

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Deferred constant declarations may be used to declare constants in the visible part of a package, but with the value of the constant given in the private part. They may also be used to declare constants imported from other languages (see Annex B).

Legality Rules

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A deferred constant declaration is an object_declaration with the reserved word constant but no initialization expression. The constant declared by a deferred constant declaration is called a deferred constant. A deferred constant declaration requires a completion, which shall be a full constant declaration (called the full declaration of the deferred constant), or a pragma Import (see Annex B). 3
A deferred constant declaration that is completed by a full constant declaration shall occur immediately within the visible part of a package_specification. For this case, the following additional rules apply to the corresponding full declaration:

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5/2

6/2

7/2

7.1/2

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A deferred constant declaration that is completed by a pragma Import need not appear in the visible part of a package_specification, and has no full constant declaration.

9/2
The completion of a deferred constant declaration shall occur before the constant is frozen (see 13.14).

Dynamic Semantics

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The elaboration of a deferred constant declaration elaborates the subtype_indication or (only allowed in the case of an imported constant) the array_type_definition.

     NOTES

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13  The full constant declaration for a deferred constant that is of a given private type or private extension is not allowed before the corresponding full_type_declaration. This is a consequence of the freezing rules for types (see 13.14).
Examples

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Examples of deferred constant declarations:

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     Null_Key constant Key;      −− see 7.3.1

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     CPU_Identifier constant String(1..8);
     pragma Import(Assembler, CPU_Identifier, Link_Name => "CPU_ID");
                                   −− see B.1