Re: SWIG backend for Ada

["Alex R. Mosteo" <devnull@mailinator.com>]

Dr. Adrian Wrigley wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:58:40 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> 
> 
>>Is anybody developing a SWIG backend which generates Ada code?
> 
> 
> I briefly looked at SWIG a couple of months ago, and thought it might
> be interesting.  But then other things took precedence.
> 
> Now I look at it again, I think this would be a really excellent
> project for Ada and Ada users!

Indeed. One of the big lacks of Ada is a fully operative tool like SWIG. 
If open source projects which use SWIG to provide python, java and other 
bindings start including Ada ones, coupled with the 3.4 gcc-ada, will 
significally increase Ada awareness.

> The project could replace cbind/c2ada, which I think is ageing
> somewhat, doesn't handle C++, and has some tricky dependencies (?)
> The great thing is that the Ada community can benefit from the
> open source work done by people on the frontend.  As I see it,
> a lot of the hard work has already been done.

All my tries at using c2ada have been unsuccesful. The first problem is 
obtaining the latest version, which seems not to be hosted anywhere. 
Last time I got it from a kind reader of this ngroup (Weimer?). After 
adjusting the makefiles (no autoconf), my gcc puked at the use of Bool 
as an enumeration element in the C code. I don't know if it is now a 
reserved word or what. I only know of the bool type in C++, but then it 
has been years since my last serious development in C/C++.

After modifying the above and compiling, everything I got were empty 
packages...

These difficulties are surely surmountable if you have the time. In my 
case it was a hobby project and I ended doing something else. What I 
mean is that the Interfaces.C packages aren't enough and something else 
would be a blessing for the casual users in need of some C library.