Re: GNAT under MS Windows

Re: GNAT under MS Windows

[Tom Griest]

In article <Cyp965.Bt8@plato.ds.boeing.com> mabreyl@bianca.ds.boeing.com writes:
>I am involved in a project for a graduate program which is centered 
>on porting at
>least the invocation and output of the GNAT compiler to MS Windows.  
>Our group is
>interested if there are other projects under way of a similar nature.
>We are aware
>of a port to Windows NT, which I believe operates from the command 
>line similar to
>the DOS version.
>Are there any MS Windows versions of GNAT out there in Ada-land?

It is not clear exactly what you want.  Do you want to be able
to click on an icon and have it launch a dialog box to select
a file to compile?  Or do you want to be able to program Windows
applications using Ada?

The GNAT/NT release on ftp.cs.yale.edu/pub/gnat does support
building Win32 applications.  It has an additional "convention"
option for both the Import and the Convention pragmas called
"stdcall".  This provides the ability to directly call the Win32
API.  In addition, special versions of gnatbind and gnatbl are
provided (gnatbindw & gnatblw) for binding WinMain programs
under the windows subsystem (not console subsystem).  A full
binding to Win32 is underway as well.

Although GNAT/NT will not currently run on Windows-3.1, it could
be modified slightly to run under Win32s which will run on Win3.1
if there was significant demand.  Our plan is to support Win95
which we think is a much better technical solution than to keep
fooling with Win3.1.

As for a "windows" based compiler invoker...
I suppose a nifty dialog box with controls to launch the compiler,
binder, debugger, and application might be helpful.  We generally
just use multiple windows to edit various files, and leave a window
to run "nmake" and another to start the application/debug.  Just
writing out the source and invoking nmake is all that is necessary.
The errors stay in the "build" window and you make the corrections
in one of the edit windows.  Are you looking to provide the functionality
of something like "HULK" for Help Authoring to Ada program development?

-Tom