Re: File name conventions for Ada units

[arny@cbnewsl.att.com (arny.b.engelson)]

In article <2190@sparko.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
> In article <589@censun1.UUCP> cew@censun1.UUCP (SSUID Craig E Warsaw) writes:
> >
[the DEC convention of pkg_.ada for spec, pkg.ada for body, pkg__unit for subs]

[the more common convention of pkg_s.ada for spec and pkg_b.ada for body]
 
> [VADS only accept ".a", and Irvine only accepts ".ada", how annoying]
> [extrapolating from Meridian's convention...
> I would go further and use .ads for a spec, .adb for a body, .ada for a
> main, and maybe .sub or whatever for a subunit. Why there are compilers, in
> this day and age, that limit file types to some predetermined value, is
> absolutely beyond me. At most there should be a default which can always
> be overridden.
> 
> Are others frustrated with these seemingly unjustifiable compiler limits?
> Can some compiler folks out there justify the limitations? Maybe I'm
> missing something here.
 
I agree that restrictions like Verdix and Irvine put on file types is
unacceptable.  But making Ada file types a standard, or even a uniform
convention, is not (IMHO) a good idea.  There are simply too many different
operating system file name formats still around.  Some limit file types to
3 characters, some (I think) still limit it to 1, others have no limit.
Overall file name length can be limited to 8, 14, or any number of chars.
It's easy to see where any one format could result in conflicts with other
tools in the environment that create files with the same extensions.  (The
".a" is an obvious example).  I don't want to lose my source code because
some CASE tool decides to create a file with the same name, especially in
UNIX where I don't have old versions.

Personally, I like the following:

    spec     body     main    subunit

  x_s.ada   x_b.ada   x.ada   x_subname_b.ada

Where "x" is the name of the compilation unit, which always ends in
"_pkg", "_task", "_proc", or "_func".  Of course, this works best when
file name length isn't limited (or you don't use subunits :-) ).

  -- Arny Engelson   att!wayback!arny