OS Bindings (was: Where is the elusive jump command?)

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

In article <umq8zyrmzgp.fsf@gong2.clustra.com>, Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <ohk@clustra.com> writes:
> kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:
> 
>> In article <umqvh1wnaad.fsf@gong2.clustra.com>, Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <ohk@clustra.com> writes:
>> > Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> writes:
>> 
>> >> But in any case, binding to C is hardly a topic that is
>> >> appropriate to people first learning the language!
>> >> 
>> > 
>> > Certainly, but writing bindings to C is one of the first things you
>> > have to do if you start using Ada for systems programming on Unix,
>> > unfortunately.
>> 
>> I am not sure what you mean by "systems programming" in this case.
>> I would presume that writing device drivers requires knowledge of
>> internal data structures, but don't vendors like Rational supply
>> bindings to Unix entrypoints that might be called by user-mode
>> programs ?
> 
> I was not thinking device drivers, but systems like communications
> systems or DBMS's, which typically will need access to Unix
> entrypoints or system calls. A thick binding designed by someone who
> is unaware of the specific needs of the system may not be suitable.
> 
> An example of the the need for system calls: A couple of months ago I
> wanted to test various implementations of asynchronous IO (Sun
> asynchronous IO, POSIX asynchronous IO, and Ada). However, to do a
> meaningful test, I need to ensure that I/O operations on the file
> descriptor complete as defined by synchronized I/O data integrity
> rules. This means either using the fcntl or fsync system calls, or
> setting the O_SYNC flag in the call to open.
> 
> In this case, needing only a few system calls, it may be more cost
> effective to write your own binding, as it's usually not difficult.
> 
> Yes, it may be possible to buy such a binding, although I have not
> seen any reference to it, either on Rational's web pages, nor on
> Adahome's list of bindings. 

On VMS, using either DEC Ada (83) or GNAT, one gets these bindings
in the package STARLET. If a competitor were to develop a compiler
for VMS without the assistance of Compaq they could achieve the same
effect with the public domain SDL program to extract the binding data
from the operating system.

On Windows NT, Aonix ships two competing sets of bindings to the
operating system calls and matching data structures.

Are you saying that no Ada vendors for Unix provide bindings ?

That seems incredible in the face of all the hype about how Unix
is ideal for programming.