11.5 Suppressing Checks
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Checking pragmas give instructions to an implementation on handling language-defined checks. A pragma
Suppress gives permission to an implementation to omit certain language-defined checks, while a pragma
Unsuppress revokes the permission to omit checks.
Term entry: suppress a check — assert that the check cannot fail, and request that the compiler optimize by disabling the check
Note: The compiler is not required to honor this request. Suppressing checks that can fail can cause a program to behave in arbitrary ways.
A language-defined check (or simply, a “check”) is one of the situations defined by this document that requires a check to be made at run time to determine whether some condition is true. A check fails when the condition being checked is False, causing an exception to be raised.
All such checks are defined under “Dynamic Semantics” in clauses and subclauses throughout the standard.
Term entry: check — test made during execution to determine whether a language rule has been violated
Syntax
3/2The forms of checking pragmas are as follows:
pragma Suppress(identifier
);
pragma Unsuppress(identifier
);
A checking pragma is allowed only immediately within a declarative_part
, immediately within a package_specification
, or as a configuration pragma.
Legality Rules
6/2The identifier
shall be the name of a check.
This paragraph was deleted.
Static Semantics
7.1/2A checking pragma applies to the named check in a specific region, and applies to all entities in that region. A checking pragma given in a declarative_part
or immediately within a package_specification
applies from the place of the pragma
to the end of the innermost enclosing declarative region. The region for a checking pragma given as a configuration pragma is the declarative region for the entire compilation unit (or units) to which it applies.
If a checking pragma applies to a generic_instantiation
, then the checking pragma also applies to the entire instance.
This means that a Suppress pragma that occurs in a scope enclosing the declaration of a generic unit but not also enclosing the declaration of a given instance of that generic unit will not apply to constructs within the given instance.
A pragma
Suppress gives permission to an implementation to omit the named check (or every check in the case of All_Checks) for any entities to which it applies. If permission has been given to suppress a given check, the check is said to be suppressed.
A check is suppressed even if the implementation chooses not to actually generate better code. This allows the implementation to raise Program_Error, for example, if the erroneousness is detected.
A pragma
Unsuppress revokes the permission to omit the named check (or every check in the case of All_Checks) given by any pragma
Suppress that applies at the point of the pragma
Unsuppress. The permission is revoked for the region to which the pragma
Unsuppress applies. If there is no such permission at the point of a pragma
Unsuppress, then the pragma
has no effect. A later pragma
Suppress can renew the permission.
The following are the language-defined checks:
- [The following checks correspond to situations in which the exception Constraint_Error is raised upon failure of a language-defined check.]
{8652/0036} Access_Check
- When evaluating a dereference (explicit or implicit), check that the value of the
name
is not null. When converting to a subtype that excludes null, check that the converted value is not null. 12
Discriminant_Check- Check that the discriminants of a composite value have the values imposed by a discriminant constraint. Also, when accessing a record component, check that it exists for the current discriminant values.
Division_Check- Check that the second operand is not zero for the operations /, rem and mod.
Index_Check- Check that the bounds of an array value are equal to the corresponding bounds of an index constraint. Also, when accessing a component of an array object, check for each dimension that the given index value belongs to the range defined by the bounds of the array object. Also, when accessing a slice of an array object, check that the given discrete range is compatible with the range defined by the bounds of the array object.
Length_Check- Check that two arrays have matching components, in the case of array subtype conversions, and logical operators for arrays of boolean components.
Overflow_Check- Check that a scalar value is within the base range of its type, in cases where the implementation chooses to raise an exception instead of returning the correct mathematical result.
Range_Check- Check that a scalar value satisfies a range constraint. Also, for the elaboration of a
subtype_indication
, check that theconstraint
(if present) is compatible with the subtype denoted by thesubtype_mark
. Also, for anaggregate
, check that an index or discriminant value belongs to the corresponding subtype. Also, check that when the result of an operation yields an array, the value of each component belongs to the component subtype. Also, for the attributes Value, Wide_Value, and Wide_Wide_Value, check that the given string has the appropriate syntax and value for the base subtype of theprefix
of theattribute_reference
. 18
Tag_Check- Check that operand tags in a dispatching call are all equal. Check for the correct tag on tagged type conversions, for an
assignment_statement
, and when returning a tagged limited object from a function.
- [The following checks correspond to situations in which the exception Program_Error is raised upon failure of a language-defined check.]
Accessibility_Check
- Check the accessibility level of an entity or view.
Allocation_Check- For an
allocator
, check that the master of any tasks to be created by theallocator
is not yet completed or some dependents have not yet terminated, and that the finalization of the collection has not started. 20
Elaboration_Check- When a subprogram or protected entry is called, a task activation is accomplished, or a generic instantiation is elaborated, check that the body of the corresponding unit has already been elaborated.
Program_Error_Check- Other language-defined checks that raise Program_Error: that subtypes with predicates are not used to index an array in a generic unit; that the maximum number of chunks is greater than zero; that the default value of an out parameter is convertible; that there is no misuse of functions in a generic with a class-wide actual type; that there are not colliding External_Tag values; that there is no misuse of operations of unchecked union types.
- [The following check corresponds to situations in which the exception Storage_Error is raised upon failure of a language-defined check.]
Storage_Check
- Check that evaluation of an
allocator
does not require more space than is available for a storage pool. Check that the space available for a task or subprogram has not been exceeded.
We considered splitting this out into three categories: Pool_Check (for allocator
s), Stack_Check (for stack usage), and Heap_Check (for implicit use of the heap — use of the heap other than through an allocator
). Storage_Check would then represent the union of these three. However, there seems to be no compelling reason to do this, given that it is not feasible to split Storage_Error.
- [The following check corresponds to situations in which the exception Tasking_Error is raised upon failure of a language-defined check.]
Tasking_Check
- Check that all tasks activated successfully. Check that a called task has not yet terminated.
- [The following checks correspond to situations in which the exception Assertion_Error is raised upon failure of a language-defined check.] For a language-defined unit U associated with one of these checks in the list below, the check refers to performance of checks associated with the Pre, Static_Predicate, and Dynamic_Predicate aspects associated with any entity declared in a descendant of U, or in an instance of a generic unit which is, or is declared in, a descendant of U. Each check is associated with one or more units:
Calendar_Assertion_Check
- Calendar.
Characters_Assertion_Check- Characters, Wide_Characters, and Wide_Wide_Characters.
Containers_Assertion_Check- Containers.
Interfaces_Assertion_Check- Interfaces.
IO_Assertion_Check- Sequential_IO, Direct_IO, Text_IO, Wide_Text_IO, Wide_Wide_Text_IO, Storage_IO, Streams.Stream_IO, and Directories.
Numerics_Assertion_Check- Numerics.
Strings_Assertion_Check- Strings.
System_Assertion_Check- System.
One could use pragma Assertion_Policy to eliminate such checks, but that would require recompiling the language defined packages (the assertion policy that determines whether the assertion checks are made is that used to compile the unit). In addition, we do not want to specify the behavior of language-defined operations if the precondition fails; that is different than the usual behavior of Assertion_Policy. By using Suppress for this purpose, we make it clear that a failed check that is suppressed means erroneous execution.
To be honest: The preceding rule about an instance of a generic where the generic is declared in U really extends recursively to handle the case of a generic package G1 which declares another generic package G1.G2, which declares another generic package G1.G2.G3, and so on. So if G1 is declared in some predefined unit U then, for purposes of defining these checks, Some_Instance_Of_G1.G2 is also considered to be declared in U.
- [The following check corresponds to all situations in which any predefined exception is raised upon failure of a check.]
All_Checks
- Represents the union of all checks; suppressing All_Checks suppresses all checks other than those associated with assertions. In addition, an implementation is allowed (but not required) to behave as if a pragma Assertion_Policy(Ignore) applies to any region to which pragma Suppress(All_Checks) applies.
All_Checks may include implementation-defined checks. It does not include, however, explicit raises of predefined exceptions (including those mandated for language constructs), nor those propagated from language-defined subprograms.
To be honest: There are additional checks defined in various Specialized Needs Annexes that are not listed here. Nevertheless, they are included in All_Checks and named in a Suppress pragma on implementations that support the relevant annex. Look up “check, language-defined” in the index to find the complete list.
We don't want to say that assertions are suppressed, because we don't want the potential failure of an assertion to cause erroneous execution (see below). Thus they are excluded from the suppression part of the above rule and then handled with an implicit Ignore policy.
Erroneous Execution
26/5If a given check has been suppressed, and the corresponding error situation occurs, the execution of the program is erroneous. Similarly, if a precondition check has been suppressed and the evaluation of the precondition would have raised an exception, execution is erroneous.
It's unclear that a precondition expression that executes raise some_exception is an "error situation"; the precondition never actually evaluates to False in that case. Thus, we spell out that case. We only allow suppressing preconditions associated with language-defined units; other preconditions follow the rules of the appropriate Assertion_Policy.
Implementation Permissions
27/2An implementation is allowed to place restrictions on checking pragmas, subject only to the requirement that pragma
Unsuppress shall allow any check names supported by pragma
Suppress. An implementation is allowed to add additional check names, with implementation-defined semantics. When Overflow_Check has been suppressed, an implementation may also suppress an unspecified subset of the Range_Checks.
Implementation-defined check names.
For Overflow_Check, the intention is that the implementation will suppress any Range_Checks that are implemented in the same manner as Overflow_Checks (unless they are free).
An implementation may support an additional parameter on pragma
Unsuppress similar to the one allowed for pragma
Suppress (see J.10). The meaning of such a parameter is implementation-defined.
Implementation Advice
28The implementation should minimize the code executed for checks that have been suppressed.
Code executed for checks that have been suppressed should be minimized.
However, if a given check comes for free (for example, the hardware automatically performs the check in parallel with doing useful work) or nearly free (for example, the check is a tiny portion of an expensive run-time system call), the implementation should not bother to suppress the check. Similarly, if the implementation detects the failure at compile time and provides a warning message, there is no need to actually suppress the check.
NOTE 1 There is no guarantee that a suppressed check is actually removed; hence a pragma
Suppress is useful only to improve efficiency.
NOTE 2 It is possible to give both a pragma
Suppress and Unsuppress for the same check immediately within the same declarative_part
. In that case, the last pragma
given determines whether or not the check is suppressed. Similarly, it is possible to resuppress a check which has been unsuppressed by giving a pragma
Suppress in an inner declarative region.
Examples
30/2Examples of suppressing and unsuppressing checks:
pragma Suppress(Index_Check);
pragma Unsuppress(Overflow_Check);
Extensions to Ada 83
A pragma
Suppress is allowed as a configuration pragma. A pragma
Suppress without a name
is allowed in a package_specification
.
Additional check names are added. We allow implementations to define their own checks.
Wording Changes from Ada 83
We define the checks in a distributed manner. Therefore, the long list of what checks apply to what is merely a NOTE.
We have removed the detailed rules about what is allowed in a pragma
Suppress, and allow implementations to invent their own. The RM83 rules weren't quite right, and such a change is necessary anyway in the presence of implementation-defined checks.
We make it clear that the difference between a Range_Check and an Overflow_Check is fuzzy. This was true in Ada 83, given RM83-11.6, but it was not clear. We considered removing Overflow_Check from the language or making it obsolescent, just as we did for Numeric_Error. However, we kept it for upward compatibility, and because it may be useful on machines where range checking costs more than overflow checking, but overflow checking still costs something. Different compilers will suppress different checks when asked to suppress Overflow_Check — the nonuniformity in this case is not harmful, and removing it would have a serious impact on optimizers.
Under Access_Check, dereferences cover the cases of selected_component
, indexed_component
, slice
, and attribute that are listed in RM83, as well as the new explicit_dereference
, which was included in selected_component
in RM83.
Extensions to Ada 95
Wording Changes from Ada 95
{8652/0036} The description of Access_Check was corrected by the Corrigendum to include the discriminant case. This change was then replaced by the more general notion of checking conversions to subtypes that exclude null in Ada 2005.
The On parameter of pragma Suppress was moved to Annex J (see J.10). This feature's effect is inherently nonportable, depending on the implementation's model of computation. Compiler surveys demonstrated this, showing that implementations vary widely in the interpretation of these parameters, even on the same target. While this is relatively harmless for Suppress (which is never required to do anything), it would be a significant problem for Unsuppress (we want the checks to be made for all implementations). By moving it, we avoid needing to define the meaning of Unsuppress with an On parameter.
Wording Changes from Ada 2005
The effect of a checking pragma no longer applies inside an inlined subprogram body. While this could change the behavior of a program that depends on a check being suppressed in an inlined body, such a program is erroneous and thus no behavior can be depended upon anyway. It's also likely to be very rare. We make this change so that inlining has no effect on the meaning of the subprogram body (since inlining is never required, this is necessary in order to be able to reason about the body), and so that assertion policies and suppress work the same way for inlining.
Extensions to Ada 2012
The various assertion checks for language-defined packages, such as Calendar_Check and Container_Check, are new.
Program_Error_Check and Tasking_Check are new; all core language-defined checks are now covered with check names.
Wording Changes from Ada 2012
Correction: Range_Check is defined to include checks associated with the Value and related attributes.