Where's the goodies?

Where's the goodies?

[Darren New]

I'm playing with GNAT on Win2K. I've heard mentions of regexp libraries
and such. What I'll definitely need is byte-oriented I/O to files and
sockets (i.e., raw binary files), as well as access to directories and
things like that. I'll need GUI too, but I haven't decided whether to do
that with the Tcl interface, the GTK interface, or with an external
program talking via sockets. 

My question is, where's the goodies? These things have to be out there,
but there's no documentation about them in the GNAT distribution that
I'm seeing. Am I missing it? Have I failed to download the right
programs? Is it deep in the bowels of AdaPower where searches for
obvious keywords fail to turn them up? (I get two sockets libraries from
a search, one of which is inaccessible, the other of which looks pretty
good.) 

I guess my real question is, "what comes with GNAT, and why can't I find
it?" :-)

TIA for any clues for the clueless.

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. dnew@san.rr.com
           When was sliced bread invented?

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B815D9C.9C22AA7A@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>and such. What I'll definitely need is byte-oriented I/O to files and
>sockets (i.e., raw binary files), as well as access to directories and

I should point out that this can be done portably with the routines in
Ada.Streams.Stream_IO and Ada.Streams.Write and Ada.Streams.Read.

>My question is, where's the goodies? These things have to be out there,
>but there's no documentation about them in the GNAT distribution that

If you are on Windows and installed to the default place, you have a full Win32
binding in c:/GNAT/Bindings/Win32Ada . Of course you can only legally use it if
you have a licensed copy of the C header files (eg: VC++). The rest of the
included stuff is in c:/GNAT/lib/gcc-lib/pentium-mingw32msv/2.8.1/adainclude (I
know what you are saying, "Why didn't I think to look there?" :-)  ). The file
names are kinda cryptic. Look particularly at all the g-* files, as those are
the "Gnat" hierarchy. "g-regexp" for instance is the regular-expression matching
stuff.

As for stuff that *doesn't* come with Gnat, check out my homepage for a small
selection that I use (if you find dead links, tell me). Also check out
http://www.adapower.com/reuse/index.html

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Where's the goodies?

[David Botton]

That is sort of a dead issue. Microsoft makes their SDKs now freely
available (ie. you get a lic. for free) off their web site.

Of course the only started doing that once all the competition for compilers
on Windows was more or less gone......

David Botton


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:

> Of course you can only legally use it if
> you have a licensed copy of the C header files (eg:++).

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <mailman.998341469.25993.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, David Botton
says...
>
>That is sort of a dead issue. Microsoft makes their SDKs now freely
>available (ie. you get a lic. for free) off their web site.

Cool.

>Of course the only started doing that once all the competition for compilers
>on Windows was more or less gone......

Well, I guess its an ill wind that blows nobody good (or somesuch).

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Where's the goodies?

[DuckE]

Gee... I wonder what it would take for Intermetrix (Averstar) to generate a
new version of those bindings against the latest SDK (The one we've been
using is somewhat outdated).

SteveD

"David Botton" <David@Botton.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.998341469.25993.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> That is sort of a dead issue. Microsoft makes their SDKs now freely
> available (ie. you get a lic. for free) off their web site.
>
> Of course the only started doing that once all the competition for
compilers
> on Windows was more or less gone......
>
> David Botton
>
>
> "Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
>
> > Of course you can only legally use it if
> > you have a licensed copy of the C header files (eg:++).
>

Re: Where's the goodies?

[David Botton]

Not likely to happen.

There is an alternative. You can get the latest VB Win32 TypeLibraries from:

http://www.themandelbrotset.com/Technical/Typelib.asp

Then use BindCOM (http://www.adapower.com/gnatcom) to compile the type
libraries in to bindings to Win32.

This will not generate a complete binding to Win32, but a huge portion of
it.

You also need to make a small change in the generated bindings do to a bug
in them.

You need to move:

   type FOLDERSETTINGS is
     new  u_MIDLuu_MIDL_itf_win_0057_0004;

after the implementation of u_MIDLuu_MIDL_itf_win_0057_0004 and then
everything should compile.

It's not perfect but should serve most needs.

David Botton


----- Original Message -----
From: "DuckE" <nospam_steved94@home.com>


> Gee... I wonder what it would take for Intermetrix (Averstar) to generate
a
> new version of those bindings against the latest SDK (The one we've been
> using is somewhat outdated).
>
> SteveD

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Robert Quinn]

David Botton <David@Botton.com> wrote in message
> That is sort of a dead issue. Microsoft makes their SDKs now freely
> available (ie. you get a lic. for free) off their web site.

>Of course the only started doing that once all the competition for
compilers
>on Windows was more or less gone......

Yeah I sure wish Microsoft would charge a lot of money for their SDKs
instead of giving them away for free!

Errr...whatever pal.

Rob

Re: Where's the goodies?

[David Botton]

It did cost a considerable sum for the Windows SDK in the beginning (I think
I still have my first Windows SDK sitting around on floppies some place, it
wasn't cheap).

When VC++ 1.0 came out and they packaged the Windows SDK with the compiler
(that cost about the same as the SDK alone.......  I wonder how many people
went ahead and purchase VC++ instead :-) Following that, the price started
dropping on the SDK slowly but surely.

Vendors had to pay for the right to distribute the Windows SDK and it was
bundled with their compilers (Cost still there, just hidden to you), and in
fact still do.

Since VC++ is about the only major compiler left on Win32 (gcc and borland
are small potatoes, the rest are all gone) no reason not to make the latest
SDKs more easily available to everyone.

In fact parts of the SDK (some of the tools) only work if you have VC++. For
example MIDL and important part of programming COM/DCOM only works if you
have VC++ (I just started work this weekend on a replacement that compiles
an XML definition of a COM/DCOM object in to a type library for use with
GNATCOM, just to get around this problem).

David Botton



----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Quinn" <thquinn@bellsouth.net>
> Yeah I sure wish Microsoft would charge a lot of money for their SDKs
> instead of giving them away for free!
>
> Errr...whatever pal.

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <mailman.998402825.9990.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "David Botton" <David@Botton.com> writes:

> Since VC++ is about the only major compiler left on Win32 (gcc and borland
> are small potatoes, the rest are all gone) no reason not to make the latest
> SDKs more easily available to everyone.

I was under the impression that Visual Basic was _much_ more popular
that Visual C++.

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Marin David Condic]

Hypothetically speaking, a lone developer in his home office could be
compiling against the Win32Ada interface and not have an appropriate
license, and Microsoft isn't likely to find out about it. (Do they have
search software to check this on your machine when you're hooked up to the
Internet? Or is it maybe built into Win2k that any use of the API is logged
and reported when you dial up to get your e-mail? Or is my paranoia running
rampant? :-) Hence, I doubt they are much into trying to enforce the license
on the small-time players. Probably, they keep it more to stop it from
slipping slowly out of their control and may only enforce it occasionally to
preserve their rights. It really isn't in their interest to stop people from
building software that can run on their OS (and ONLY their OS!)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"David Botton" <David@Botton.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.998341469.25993.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> That is sort of a dead issue. Microsoft makes their SDKs now freely
> available (ie. you get a lic. for free) off their web site.
>
> Of course the only started doing that once all the competition for
compilers
> on Windows was more or less gone......
>
> David Botton
>
>
> "Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
>
> > Of course you can only legally use it if
> > you have a licensed copy of the C header files (eg:++).
>

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Mark Johnson]

Darren New wrote:

> [snip]My question is, where's the goodies? These things have to be out
> there,
> but there's no documentation about them in the GNAT distribution that
> I'm seeing. Am I missing it? Have I failed to download the right
> programs? Is it deep in the bowels of AdaPower where searches for
> obvious keywords fail to turn them up? (I get two sockets libraries from
> a search, one of which is inaccessible, the other of which looks pretty
> good.)
>

RTFM. :-(

To quote the GNAT reference manual...
   The chapter here simply gives a brief summary of the facilities
available.  The full documentation is found in the spec file for the
package. The full sources of these library packages, including both
spec and body, are provided with all GNAT releases. For example, to
find out the full specifications of the SPITBOL pattern matching
capability, including a full tutorial and extensive examples, look in
the g-spipat.ads file in the library.

I assume you know where the GNAT library was installed on your system.
  --Mark

Re: Where's the goodies?

[Darren New]

Mark Johnson wrote:
> To quote the GNAT reference manual...

My apologies. I saw the ARM and GCC manuals in that directory, and
somehow managed to miss the GNAT reference manual. Sorry for wasting
your time, y'all!

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. dnew@san.rr.com
           When was sliced bread invented?