Ada83 suffers from being a non-polymorphic statically bound language in that, the types of data need to be known before run-time. The generic mechanism helps to overcome this limitation in that a non-type specific package can be written and instantiated for several actual data types, depending on the generic formal parameter chosen. One problem that is not solved by the generic mechanism is that of input and output of data values. Since actual data types are represented in different ways, there is no single routine which can be called upon to get or put items of a generic formal type. This paper outlines a possible solution to this problem.
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/output-from-generic-packages-YWycjHheg0