Re: Motif gfx progs in DEC Ada?

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software)]

In article <3h75fq$fol@covina.lightside.com>, jehamby@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_DOMAIN_FILE (Jake E. Hamby) writes:

> Pardon me for yet another DEC Ada related question but that's what we use 
> at school...  I would like to write some graphics programs for 
> DECwindows/Motif on a VAX running VMS and DEC Ada, but I'm having 
> problems with the Motif-to-Ada bindings.  In ADA$PREDEFINED, I found the 
> package description file MOTIF_.ADC, but I just couldn't port even the 
> simplest "open window, print "Hello, world!" program to Ada.  First, the 
> definition for XtAppInitialize neglected to return a value (in C, it 
> returns a Widget).  When I substituted XtVaAppInitialize (which should 
> NOT have an Ada equivalent, since Ada doesn't support varargs), the 
> program just crashed.

MOTIF_.ADC in ADA$PREDEFINED: is defective, and that was noted by DEC.
I would recommend deleting it after performing the steps outlined below.

> On the other hand, there is a DIFFERENT Motif package in ADA$EXAMPLES, 
> but it isn't built in to the standard Ada library and I don't have time 
> to compile it and test it, since it would not be available to 
> teachers/other students.

The MOTIFBINDING_*.ADA and MOTIFBINDINGX5M12_.ADA bindings in ADA$EXAMPLES
are a result of the work DEC did to remedy MOTIF_.ADC problems.

Command procedure ADA$EXAMPLES:0_MOTIFBINDING_BUILD.COM can be used by
someone with privilege (e.g., your system manager) to insert the new
bindings into the standard Ada library.  As your system manager knows,
major changes to layered products should be done just after the regular
backup of the system disk.  What your system manager may not know (if
not an Ada programmer) is that changes to the standard Ada library are
major changes to a layered product, so make that clear in your request.

Larry Kilgallen
Using Ada without a government mandate