[Oberon] Clarifying type compatibility in Oberon-07

[Andreas Pirklbauer]

> On Wed Oct 11 07:59:12 CEST 2017 Jürg Straube wrote:
>
> Indeed I liked the idea of removing type aliasing in Oberon-07, but it was
> reintroduced in the previous year. Wirth justified it saying that sometimes
> it's useful to introduce a short synonym for a lengthy, imported type name.
>
> Most prominent example of type aliasing with basic types is TYPE LONGINT = INTEGER;
>
> Jörg

I should have left the variant *with* the type aliases for INTEGER out. Because the
issue we are discussing here even exists *without* aliases, as the (re-posted) question
below shows. Type aliases only add an additional complication or consideration.


"Question:

How is this code (“code A”):

  VAR
    nbrOfBirthsPerMonth: ARRAY 12 OF INTEGER;
    nbrOfAccidentsPerMonth: ARRAY 12 OF INTEGER;

  nbrOfBirthsPerMonth := nbrOfAccidentsPerMonth; (*these match structurally but makes not much sense, should be forbidden*)

CONCEPTUALLY different from the following code (“code B”):

  VAR
    nbrOfBirthsPerMonth: INTEGER;
    nbrOfAccidentsPerMonth: INTEGER;

    nbrOfBirthsPerMonth := nbrOfAccidentsPerMonth; (*allowed, but *also* makes not much sense*)

when in comes to name equivalence vs structural equivalence?"



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