From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
	autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,400766bdbcd86f7c,start
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
From: "Per Lindquist" <commander@death-star.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: This can't be done in Ada...or?
Date: 11 Feb 2005 08:33:31 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Message-ID: <1108139611.709714.36170@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 138.14.239.132
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1108139615 16106 127.0.0.1 (11 Feb 2005 16:33:35
 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 16:33:35 +0000 (UTC)
User-Agent: G2/0.2
Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
Injection-Info: o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=138.14.239.132;
   posting-account=e84-wQ0AAADeDLnjH5yWqnRMVsJLfQJg
Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8245
Date: 2005-02-11T08:33:31-08:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Hi, this question has already sort of been discussed in topics about
multiple target platforms, conditional compilation, preprocessors and
build strategies. Before giving up I thought I'd give it a try one last
time...

My impression from reading some threads is that Ada DOES NOT offer a
decent way to implement trace printouts (log messages), at least not
with the features stated below.

The problem
-----------

We want to be able to output log messages, or traces as we call it,
from an Ada program. There will be a few trace categories like Error,
Warning, Note etc. The messages (strings) can be sent to a file or
stdout or whatever (not important).

A call might look something like this:

Trace.Error(Package_Name, Subprogram_Name, "Woops, V=" &
Some_Type'Image(V));

How do we write a tracing utility in Ada that:
1. has different behaviour on different target platforms
2. can disable some categories depending on target platform at
compile-time.
3. does *not* cause any execution overhead if disabled.
4. does not need yucky "if Trace_Wanted then ... end if;" around all
calls
5. does not need preprocessing (some of you say it's never needed in
Ada...)

I say it can't be done in Ada. Please prove me wrong!

Appendix
--------
I don't want to clutter the post with too much info but some additional
stuff  may be of interest:

There are two target platforms:
"target variant":
HW: Sun workstation, OS: Solaris, Real-time: no, Compiler: gcc (gnat)

"host variant":
HW: PowerPC, OS: Integrity 5, Real-time: yes, Compiler: Adamulti (Green
Hills)

If we could get rid of those hardcoded constants

  Package_Name : constant String := "Some_Package";
  ...
  Subprogram_Name : constant String := "Some_Procedure1";
  ...
  Subprogram_Name : constant String := "Some_Procedure2";

it would be a great bonus, but I reckon it can't be done either..?