GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Jeffrey D. Cherry]

I would like to give my compliments to all who participated in 
incorporating GNAT into the GCC.  It's a real treat to have one compiler 
installation, one command shell, and be able to build programs in Ada, C, 
C++, or FORTRAN 77 using the same shell and compiler.  This is so cool!

A few weeks ago I downloaded the MinGW distribution of GCC 3.1 (dated 16 
May 2002), installed it on my Windows 2000 machine, and compiled a bunch of 
rather simple legacy Ada, C, C++, and FORTRAN 77 programs.  They all ran 
successfully.  I installed the Win32 API and the Win32Ada bindings and 
compiled several more small Ada programs that used some Win32 services.  
These ran successfully as well.  I then installed the Booch components and 
although there were several warnings during the compile step, all the tests 
and demo programs ran successfully.  I compiled several of my Ada programs 
that utilitze the Booch components and they ran successfully as well.  I 
installed an old POSIX binding (Pascal Obry's Win32POSIX) and the tests in 
that distribution ran successfully.  I had one Ada program that used the 
POSIX binding so I tried compiling it and it ran successfully as well.

Rather pleased with all this, I downloaded the GNU Pascal Compiler, 
installed it, and compiled a rather large suite of static code analysis 
tools (all written in Borland Pascal with Objects, v7).  After some 
tweaking, they all compiled.  I ran the resulting tools against some code I 
had analyzed a few years ago and checked the output against the archived 
copy.  Except for the time and date of the analysis runs, the outputs were 
identical.  It's been quite a productive month.

Granted these were rather trivial tests of the compiler and bindings, but 
the pessimist in me didn't think the first major distribution of the GCC 
with GNAT would be able to handle it.  I, quite gladly, stand corrected.

Since I teach Ada, C, and C++ part-time at the local community college, 
this is a real blessing since all the students can now use the same 
compiler distribution.  That may not sound like much, but you wouldn't 
believe how big a time-saver it is to have a single compiler configuration 
for all the classes.

My full-time job uses ASIS to build some analysis tools, but I don't see an 
ASIS interface available for GCC 3.1.  Does anyone know if one is planned?  
This isn't a real problem, since at work we'll be using GNAT 3.14p in the 
foreseeable future ... but I am curious.

Once again, for anyone and everyone involved in incorporating GNAT into 
GCC, thank you, thank you, thank you!


-- 
Regards,
Jeffrey D. Cherry
Senior IV&V Analyst
Northrop Grumman Information Technology

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Ted Dennison]

Jeffrey D. Cherry wrote:
> My full-time job uses ASIS to build some analysis tools, but I don't see an 
> ASIS interface available for GCC 3.1.  Does anyone know if one is planned?  
> This isn't a real problem, since at work we'll be using GNAT 3.14p in the 
> foreseeable future ... but I am curious.

You may want to check the GCC mailing list archives about this.

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[achrist]

"Jeffrey D. Cherry" wrote:
> 
> I would like to give my compliments to all who participated in
> incorporating GNAT into the GCC.  It's a real treat to have one 
> compiler installation, one command shell, and be able to build 
> programs in Ada, C, C++, or FORTRAN 77 using the same shell and
> compiler.  This is so cool!
> 
> A few weeks ago I downloaded the MinGW distribution of GCC 3.1 (dated
> 16 May 2002), installed it on my Windows 2000 machine, and compiled a
> bunch of rather simple legacy Ada, C, C++, and FORTRAN 77 programs.  
> They all ran successfully.  I installed the Win32 API and the Win32Ada
> bindings and compiled several more small Ada programs that used some 
> Win32 services. These ran successfully as well.  I then installed the
> Booch components and although there were several warnings during the 
> compile step, all the tests and demo programs ran successfully.  I 
> compiled several of my Ada programs that utilitze the Booch components
> and they ran successfully as well.  I installed an old POSIX binding
> (Pascal Obry's Win32POSIX) and the tests in that distribution ran 
> successfully.  I had one Ada program that used  the POSIX binding so 
> I tried compiling it and it ran successfully as > well.
> 
> Rather pleased with all this, I downloaded the GNU Pascal Compiler,
> installed it, and compiled a rather large suite of static code 
> analysis  tools (all written in Borland Pascal with Objects, v7).  
> After some tweaking, they all compiled.  I ran the resulting tools 
> against some code I had analyzed a few years ago and checked the 
> output against the archived copy.  Except for the time and date of the
> analysis runs, the outputs were identical.  It's been quite a 
> productive month.
> 

Impressive indeed.  Only about half of commercial software works that 
well out of the box.  For so many pieces of software from diverse 
contributors to work together like that is something that should help 
promote Ada at least a little. 

Some questions:

1. Did you download binaries or source for all of this? (URL's?)

2. Are there step-by-step directions for setting all this up available 
anywhere on-line?  (URL?) (If students can do this, there must be
step-by-step directions somewhere, right?)

3. If there aren't step-by-step directions, wouldn't it be nice if there
were?  If there aren't, I'd be willing to try to write some if you or 
someone can point me toward what it takes to make it all happen.

TIA


Al

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[steve_H]

hello;

Can you show examples of how to use gcc to compile Ada?

if one uses 'gcc foo.ada', what about 'gnatmake'? that is what is used
more of the time. do you then now use normal Makfile to build your software
and call 'gcc' from inside the makefile, or do you still use gnatmake?

this is confusing to me. Examples would help. 

It is strange of how important adding Ada to gcc is, there is almost nothing
on the net that shows examples of how this is done, nothing on gcc web page
and nothing on ACT web page. they mentioned GNAT and gcc, but no examples,
nothing I could find.

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Jeffrey D. Cherry]

Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in
news:3D112A63.5030502@telepath.com: 

>> My full-time job uses ASIS to build some analysis tools, but I don't see
>> an ASIS interface available for GCC 3.1.  Does anyone know if one is
>> planned?  This isn't a real problem, since at work we'll be using GNAT
>> 3.14p in the foreseeable future ... but I am curious. 
> 
> You may want to check the GCC mailing list archives about this.
> 

I checked all the archives through the beginning of 2002.  I found no mention 
of "ASIS" in the subject headers of the archived e-mails.  It may have been 
mentioned in the body of one or more messages, but I only searched the 
subjects.  Do you know of a specific thread that I could check?  By the way, 
thanks for the suggestion, there were many threads dealing with GNAT in GCC 
and some discussion of GCC 3.2 that I found interesting.

-- 
Regards,
Jeffrey D. Cherry
Senior IV&V Analyst
Northrop Grumman Information Technology

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[David Marceau]

steve_H wrote:
> 
> hello;
> 
> Can you show examples of how to use gcc to compile Ada?
> 
> if one uses 'gcc foo.ada', what about 'gnatmake'? that is what is used
gnatmake -v -g foo.adb

> more of the time. do you then now use normal Makfile to build your software
> and call 'gcc' from inside the makefile, or do you still use gnatmake?

In a standard makefile, you will find a rule for a target ada
executable.  
In this you will find gnatmake blahblah.adb.  That's all.
My suggestion if you really want to see what's going on, turn on the
verbose switch
for both the make tool(make -d) and for the gnatmake tool(gnatmake -v).  
This will help see what's going on with gcc and all the rest.

EMACS USAGE WHEN COMPILING WITHOUT LEARNING ADA FUNCTIONALITY FROM GNAT
MACROS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emacs is huge and has a lot of functionality.  My suggestion for a first
shot use of emacs without reading up too much on it:
emacs &
crtl-d
yourdirectorywithmakefile
enter
alt-x shell
Now this all looks like a standard console but it's not.  You can ctrl-s
to search for anything in the window.  This is very handy.
You can also pageup an pagedown.  This avoids you from having to use a
mouse in the normal terminal.
This is very handy when you know you're going to have multi-page
output.  There are more ways of building with emacs, but RTFM for those.
Now getting to the recipe you have probably seen before:
RECIPE FOR COMPILING ADA PROJECTS
---------------------------------
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

You should be able to compile the real ada projects 1)adasockets,
2)xmlada, 3)aws with the above recipe.

SOURCE CODE to COMPILE WITH ADA
-------------------------------
You want sample code go get the source/sample code from act europe for
adasockets, xmlada, aws:
http://libre.act-europe.fr/

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
---------------------
The above assumes you successfully compiled gcc31.
The above assumes you have set your environment variables:
export PATH=$PATH:/home/david/gcc31tars/gcc-3.1/bin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib
export
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/david/gcc31tars/gcc-3.1/lib
Note:These are not the official places for these.  If you had problems
compiling gcc31, I have already been told this is not the place.
Go to the gcc mailing list.

AFTER DOING ALL THE ABOVE
-------------------------
Run a aws sample:
cd aws
cd demos
./hello_world

Then check out:
lynx localhost:8080

Cheers,
David Marceau

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Jeffrey D. Cherry]

achrist@easystreet.com wrote in news:3D1166A3.4C62DDA8@easystreet.com:

> Some questions:
> 
> 1. Did you download binaries or source for all of this? (URL's?)

I downloaded the source from the GNU ftp site, including the composite tar-
gzip file and all the individualt tar-gzip files for version 3.1.  These 
files can be found at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gcc/gcc-3.1; however, shortly 
after I had done downloaded these files, there was an announcement on CLA 
that MinGW had created a binary distribution of GCC 3.1.  Following the 
announcement's suggestion, I went to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net), 
found the MinGW project's page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw) and 
downloaded the following files:
   MinGW-1.1.tar.gz
   bunutils-2_12_90-20020518-1.tar.gz
   binutils-2_12_90-info-html.tar.gz
   gcc-3_1-core-20020516-1.tar.gz
   gcc-3_1-Ada-20020516-1.tar.gz
   gcc-3_1-info-html.tar.gz
   gcc-3_1-release_notes.txt
   libmingwex.a
   libstdc++-html-USERS-3.1.tar.gz
   make-3.79.1-20010722.tar.gz
   mingw-runtime-2.0-20020430.tar.gz
   w32api-1.4-2.tar.gz

To download these files starting from the aforementioned MinGW project page, 
(1) click on the "download" link for any of the listed packages and this will 
bring you to the file list page for the project, (2) from there, click on the 
desired file name and that will lead you to a page where you can select the 
server from which the download will be performed, (3) click on the server 
nearest your location and the download will begin, (4) return to the "file 
list page" and repeat this process for each file desired.

I found out later that the libmingwex.a file was unnecessary if I installed 
the MinGW 2.0 runtime and the make-3.79.1-20010722.tar.gz file was also 
unnecessary since it was included in the MinGW 1.1 distribution.  Since this 
initial download, the Win32 API has been updated to version 1.5 and so I 
would suggest getting the latest (w32api-1.5.tar.gz).

If you are interested in the Pascal compiler, then I suggest going to the 
home site for GNU Pascal (http://www.gnu-pascal.de) and downloading the 
Pascal compiler component from there.  

> 
> 2. Are there step-by-step directions for setting all this up available 
> anywhere on-line?  (URL?) (If students can do this, there must be
> step-by-step directions somewhere, right?)

The associated documentation for each component describes the installation 
process for that particular component.  Generally, you extract the files in 
the tar-gzip file into a common directory tree on your hard disk.  Some 
components require environment variables (such as the Ada component of the 
GCC).  A previous post on CLA listed the steps to get the MinGW installation 
up and running and they worked for me.

For distribution to students, I burn a CD (the student provided the CD) with 
a rather large set of files, all of which are freely available from the 
Internet.  One set of files is the GNAT 3.14p distribution, another set is 
the GCC 3.1 distribution from the MinGW project.  Typically, I add a command 
(batch) file that performs most, if not all, of the installation steps.  I 
also provide a text file in the root directory of the CD that describes a 
manual installation, so your assumption regading "step-by-step directions" is 
correct.  If you, or someone else, requests a copy of the steps I used, then 
I'll post them to CLA.

Please note that the GNU Pascal compiler has its own installation program 
similar to most software products that run under Windows.  The GNU Pascal 
installation will make some small changes to the registry and also requies an 
environment variable.  Installing libraries (such as the CRT unit) requies 
downloading the extra files and compiling them.  Some additional copying of 
certain files to other installation directories will also be necessary.

> 
> 3. If there aren't step-by-step directions, wouldn't it be nice if there
> were?  If there aren't, I'd be willing to try to write some if you or 
> someone can point me toward what it takes to make it all happen.

It's always nice to have "step-by-step directions" and I can provide a text 
description of the steps I used if requested (as I mentioned in passing in 
the response to point number 2 above).  Generally, I find the documentation 
of the GCC components very well done and the GNAT documentation is 
particularly good.  The GNAT compiler also has about the best error and 
warning messages I've ever seen from a compiler (and I've used quite a few in 
my time, nearly 20 years of reviewing safety-critical software running on a 
variety of different platforms).  

The descriptive error messages are one thing that makes the GNAT compiler an 
_excellent_ compiler for students.  I've also found that first-time 
programming students pick up Ada much faster than C, C++, FORTRAN, or Java.  
At our school, students typically start with Ada, and then may also learn 
C++, FORTRAN, or Java in later classes.  This seems to work well since Ada 
provides them with good fundamentals in software development, is very 
readable, and the student-friendly messages from the GNAT compiler is icing 
on the cake.  

-- 
Regards,
Jeffrey D. Cherry
Senior IV&V Analyst
Northrop Grumman Information Technology

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Florian Weimer]

Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> writes:

> You may want to check the GCC mailing list archives about this.

As far as I can recall, there was no discussion on these lists.

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Jeffrey D. Cherry]

nma124@hotmail.com (steve_H) wrote in
news:8db3d6c8.0206200134.1ff139f7@posting.google.com: 

> Can you show examples of how to use gcc to compile Ada?

Yes, but this is in the documentation that comes with the Ada component of 
the GCC.  Look in the "GNAT User's Guide" that should be in the "info-html" 
subdirectory of the installation.  There is an example in the section titled 
"Running a Simple Ada Program" details the steps of using the gcc, gnatbind, 
gnatlink sequence and the equivalent process using gnatmake.

> 
> if one uses 'gcc foo.ada', what about 'gnatmake'? that is what is used
> more of the time. do you then now use normal Makfile to build your
> software and call 'gcc' from inside the makefile, or do you still use
> gnatmake? 

I haven't come accross an Ada project yet that couldn't use gnatmake to build 
an executable.  For example, the largest Ada project I've seen is composed of 
around 250K SLOC partitioned into about a dozen different executables.  The 
gnatmake program, with the proper command line options, was able to build 
each of those programs.

The Ada language, the GNAT compilation model, and the GNAT configuration 
pragmas, combined with the versatility of the GCC utilities makes the need 
for a separate make facility almost completely unnecessary.  However, some 
projects do things like combining units provided from third-party vendors, or 
object modules and libraries compiled using different high-level languages, 
or target different platforms, and this requires special steps.  In these 
cases the GNU make facility can provide the needed versatility, and yes, the 
make file will call the gcc compiler to create the dependent units.  Of 
course, gcc determines which compiler to use depending on the source file's 
extension or a command line switch.

> 
> this is confusing to me. Examples would help. 
> 
> It is strange of how important adding Ada to gcc is, there is almost
> nothing on the net that shows examples of how this is done, nothing on
> gcc web page and nothing on ACT web page. they mentioned GNAT and gcc,
> but no examples, nothing I could find.

I would love to provide examples and help make things more clear; however, 
the documentation that comes with the GNAT component of the GCC provides 
examples of compiling, linking, and running along with a vast array of 
suplementary information.  I doubt I could do better than what is already 
available, but if you provide a specific request, I'm sure that I or others 
reading CLA can elaborate on the processes involved.

Keep in mind that the process of creating executables from Ada source is the 
same as it's always been, and so finding documentation on something that 
hasn't changed will not be easy.  For me, the big savings is having one 
compiler installation that handles just about all the programming languages 
that I use either personally or professionaly.

-- 
Regards,
Jeffrey D. Cherry
Senior IV&V Analyst
Northrop Grumman Information Technology

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[achrist]

"Jeffrey D. Cherry" wrote:
> 
> It's always nice to have "step-by-step directions" and I can provide a > text description of the steps I used if requested (as I mentioned in
> passing in the response to point number 2 above). 

Thanks very much for the lengthy reply.  This is enough for me to get
started.  If there are any other directions that will keep me out of
trouble, please feel free to post them here or email.  I'll go search
Google for the message you mentioned about getting MingW Ada running.
If you can recall poster's name or approximate date, that would be
good.

I'll try to work through this, take notes as I go, and post my
play-by-play post mortem somewhere.  One thing that I think would
be nice to include in the process is creating an executable that 
includes sources in several languages, all compiled through gcc,
preferably with just one makefile.  If the distributions you mention 
don't include any simple examples that do that, any contribution
of a small example that does would be gratefully accepted.


Al

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Marc A. Criley]

"Jeffrey D. Cherry" wrote:
> 
> My full-time job uses ASIS to build some analysis tools, but I don't see an
> ASIS interface available for GCC 3.1.  Does anyone know if one is planned?
> This isn't a real problem, since at work we'll be using GNAT 3.14p in the
> foreseeable future ... but I am curious.

I know ASIS-for-GNAT is still being actively worked on, since when I
report bugs in it the ACT maintainer follows up on them right away,
despite my being an unsupported user.

Marc A. Criley, Consultant
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Georg Bauhaus]

steve_H <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote:
: Can you show examples of how to use gcc to compile Ada?

Adding to the Emacs way described earlier:
Install GLIDE! Look at the Ada menu then.
Configure your project choosing the appropriate menu item, or C-c u,
this will let you set options like switches and include paths for
non-tiny projects.  Press the save button.
From then on it's a matter of either using the Ada menu again
or pressing C-c C-c or some such.

Also, M-x speedbar.

The options are saved to a file that ends in .adp
and this file can easily be used to constuct a makefile
for distribution to sites not using .adp (i.e. project) files.

This will help overcome the worst portability obstacle
ever invented (in my view): configure.

-- Georg

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[Wes Groleau]

> A few weeks ago I downloaded the MinGW distribution of GCC 3.1 (dated 16
> May 2002), installed it on my Windows 2000 machine, and compiled a bunch of
> rather simple legacy Ada, C, C++, and FORTRAN 77 programs.  They all ran

From where did you download it?  At http://www.mingw.org/
they say the latest version is 2.95.

Was Java included?

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: GCC 3.1 with GNAT ... Cool!

[SIMON Claude]

Wes Groleau a �crit :
> 
> > A few weeks ago I downloaded the MinGW distribution of GCC 3.1 (dated 16
> > May 2002), installed it on my Windows 2000 machine, and compiled a bunch of
> > rather simple legacy Ada, C, C++, and FORTRAN 77 programs.  They all ran
> 
> From where did you download it?  At http://www.mingw.org/
> they say the latest version is 2.95.

At sourceforge.net   search gcc and then clic on MinGW...
and then on gcc ...  t�l�chargement and you see the liste of all the
files.