Problems with AETECH Ada

Problems with AETECH Ada

[ISAAC PENTINMAKI]

>From:    Caroline McCullough <mccull@IFTE.SED.REDSTONE.ARMY.MIL>

>1.  Can you compile DOS applications with AETECH?  We are having problems
>    referencing the standard packages from DOS.  We have no documentation for
>    writing DOS applications.
Sounds like you bought a Windows compiler. As such there might be no
runtime for DOS provided, just the Windows GUI.  Depending on what you
are trying to do the Windows libraries should have some routines to do
most DOS applications.

>2.  Existing code:
>      end record;
>      for sym_record'size use 70 * system.storage_unit;
>    Produces:
>      *ERROR*  This size is not supported for this type (J.4.17)
>    In the AETECH Compiler documentation, Chapter 13, a thousand bits is
>    allocated for the size expression.  The above existing code uses 560 bits.

I don't have your documentation or much of a code fragment to help you here.
Usually the limitation is a multiple of 8 where the size requested at least
large enough to handle the type's default size.

Also since the compiler does not allocate the maximum size for types that
have fields dependent on discriminants you can't specify a rep clause for
such a type. i.e. :
        Type X (D : Natural) Is Record
            Str : String(1..D);
        End Record;
        Var : X;
On many compilers this will allocate a lot of memory to the variable since
'D' can be as large as 32767 on that compiler.

>3.  The AETECH IntegrAda windows environment sets up default directories for
>    the scratch files and the ".obj" output files.  Where can the defaults
>    be changed for the .sym, .jrl, etc. files?  I am only able to compile
>    out of the C:\IADAWIN directory in order for the compiler/linker/binder
>    to find all the pertinent files.  When I compile on  "D" drive under a
>    subdirectory, files cannot always be found.

Depending on how their environment works you need to use the route option.
It might be "/R" in which case the syntax is "/Rpath" where path is a legal
path (drop the quotes).  Also you must be sure to set the environment
variable PATH to have the correct path for your runtime and any extra
libraries you are using.

>Caroline McCullough
>mccull@ifte.sed.redstone.army.mil

>May be you should upgrade to Alsys Activada for Windows 3.1.
>It produces both Windows and DOS applications. For a rewiew
>Frederic Bonnard
>Alsys

Actually I would suggest Windows NT myself since I find the
Windows 3.1 limitation's irritating :
        Atoms and other 64k limits
        robustness

Or you could switch from Aetech to R.R. Software's version for
a fraction of what a new compiler will cost you.  It like Alsys comes
with both DOS and Windows runtimes.

Isaac
Sundog@ACM.Org