Operator Overloading for Protected Types

Proposal Editing Information

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Requirement Summary

Operator overloading for protected type methods.

• What does it mean to do an assignment to a protected type?
• Can't we already do some of this by declaring a regular procedure outside of the protected type?
• Allowing a protected type as a parameter to a function may satisify this.

Meeting Discussion 6/16/2016

It would perhaps be more intuitive if the protected type object were to be passed to the function,
however, protected types require use of a variable and is not currently allowed to be passed to functions.
This language extension is proposed in FunctionInterface

Related Issues: ISAC IR-2100 and Bugzilla 58

There was a reference to Accellera LRM SC 13-Jun-2006. Do these exist?

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VHDL Issue Number:        2100 

Language_Version          VHDL-2002
Classification            Language Definition Problem
Summary                   Operator overloading for protected type methods
Relevant_LRM_Sections     2.3.1 Operator overloading
Related_Issues            
Key_Words_and_Phrases     operator overloading, protected type methods
Authors_Name              Peter Ashenden
Authors_Phone_Number      +61
Authors_Fax_Number        
Authors_Email_Address     peter@ashenden.com.au
Authors_Affiliation       Ashenden Designs
Authors_Address1          
Authors_Address2          
Authors_Address3          

Current Status:           Forwarded

Superseded By:

------------------------
Date Submitted:           14 June 2006
Date Analyzed:            08 September 2006
Author of Analysis:       Chuck Swart
Revision Number:          1
Date Last Revised:        08 September 2006

Description of Problem
----------------------

This was originally raised by Chuck Swart in the Accellera VHDL-TC review of P1076-2006/D2.11:
    
    Description:
     [reply]      Opened: 2006-06-14 13:48
    
page 39, 2.4.1 Contains the following paragraph (unchanged from VHDL 2002):
    
    "The subprogram specification of a unary operator must have a single parameter,
    unless the subprogram specification is a method of a protected type. In this
    latter case, the subprogram specification must have no parameters. The
    subprogram specification of a binary operator must have two parameters; unless
    the subprogram specification is a method of a protected type, in which case, the
    subprogram specification must have a single parameter..."
    
This is not correct. The pre-VHDL 2000 wording is correct:
    
    "The subprogram specification of a unary operator must have a single parameter.
    The subprogram specification of a binary operator must have two parameters..."
    
    
    ------- Additional Comment #1 From Peter Ashenden 2006-06-14 21:06 [reply] -------
    
My recollection of the rationale for the change (which was made in
P1076a) is that, for a protected type method, the prefix object is
implicitly an operand.  Thus, we might define a protected type
    
      type T is protected
        impure function "abs" return real;
        impure function "*" (R : real) return real;
      end protected T;
    
To use the operators, you'd currently have to invoke them in function-call form, eg:
    
      shared variable V : T;
      ...
    
      X <:    V."abs";
      Y <= V."*"(2.0);
    
I don't recall why we didn't go further to specify rules for
interpreting use of operator methods in operator form. For example, we
could conceivably rewrite the above as:
    
      X <= abs V;
      Y <= V * 2.0;
    
This would need rules saying that a unary method application is
equivalent to a function call with the operand as the prefix, and a
binary method application is equivalent to a function call with the
left operand as a prefix. How you'd define an operator that can have
the variable as the right operand would be an issue to consider.
    
Given our discussion in the LRM-SC telecon on 13-Jun-2006, this would
be an issue for the ISAC to address, since it relates to
VHDL-2002. Hence, I'll submit an ISAC IR. In the longer term, we'll
also need to revisit this if we use protected types as the starting
point for OO class types. Hence, I'll mark this bug as resolved/later.
    

Proposed Resolution
-------------------



VASG-ISAC Analysis & Rationale
------------------------------

This issue needs to be addressed in the broader context of extending
the language to allow class types. In the VHDL-2000 revision work,
there were discussions of related issues, such as the problems of
passing protected objects as function parameters: function parameters
must be of mode IN, but protected parameters must be of mode INOUT. A
reference to this discussion is: http://www.eda-twiki.org/isac/hm/0316.html.

VASG-ISAC Recommendation for IEEE Std 1076-2002
-----------------------------------------------
The issue is unresolved for VHDL-2002

VASG-ISAC Recommendation for Future Revisions
---------------------------------------------

This issue is a requirement for future language revisions.


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Use Model / Code Examples

Questions

Proposal

General Comments

-- JimLewis - 2014-11-11 Not sure how this would work or if we even need it.

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