* Re: GNAT's gnatchp
@ 1996-04-01 0:00 Peter J. Pierce
1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Peter J. Pierce @ 1996-04-01 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
Mr. Dewar:
In self defense, the following is verbatim from file gcc.hlp
which is distributed with gnat for Windows95/NT:
--- begin excerpt ---
Usage : gnatchp [-ksw] filename [directory]
k limit filenames to 8 characters.
r generate source reference pragmas
s generate a compilation script.
w overwrite existing filenames.
--- end excerpt -----
Why would you take an unfounded jab at me? There is a file
gnatchp.exe, by the way - which adds to the confusion.
I got other HELPFUL responses which allowed me to determine
I had a "bad" copy of gnatchop.bat. Once replaced, it worked
fine.
Peter J. Pierce 4/1/96
dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> "I have been trying to get the GNAT utility "gnatchp" to work
> without success.
>
> I have strictly followed the documentation"
>
> Well that's a nice contradiction. There is no such thing as the
> GNAT utility "gnatchp", so it would be *quite* hard to follow
> the documentation, strictly or otherwise, on gnatchp, since
> there is none.
>
> Undoubtedly you read the documentation or GNATCHOP, not gnatchp.
> Changing names in commands does not come under the category'
> of strictly following documentation I am afraid :-) :-)
>
> Nearly all difficulties with GNAT come from not following the
> documentation exactly in our experience (I mean intallation
> difficulties here).
>
> One of my students in my class wrote a note today saying that books
> in CS were useless, the only way to learn is by example! I replied
> that the ability to read documentation accurately is an important
> skill! I guess this is a nice example :-)
>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-04-01 0:00 GNAT's gnatchp Peter J. Pierce @ 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1996-04-03 0:00 ` Tom Griest 0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1996-04-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Peter Pierce wrote: Mr. Dewar: In self defense, the following is verbatim from file gcc.hlp which is distributed with gnat for Windows95/NT: --- begin excerpt --- Usage : gnatchp [-ksw] filename [directory] k limit filenames to 8 characters. r generate source reference pragmas s generate a compilation script. w overwrite existing filenames. --- end excerpt ----- Why would you take an unfounded jab at me? There is a file gnatchp.exe, by the way - which adds to the confusion. I got other HELPFUL responses which allowed me to determine I had a "bad" copy of gnatchop.bat. Once replaced, it worked fine. OOPS! This indeed is a goof. Our documentation (gnatinfo.txt) of course does not contain this error, but apparently Tom Griest (the source of a helpful response, but also apparently responsble for the confusion in the first place :-) slipped up in creating this gcc.hlp file (which is not something we have anything to do with). So I apologize for what was indeed an unfair comment! In future I strongly suggest that you ONLY refer to the GNAT documentation that we produce (i.e. gnatinfo.txt) which is far less likely to have serious errors like this one. We find that, for people using our documentation, 99% of installation and usage problems result from inaccurate reading of the documentation. But certainly if errors like this creep into other sources, then that generates understandable confusion. here is the relevant section from gnatinfo.txt. Be sure to get a copy of this file, and refer only to it, not to any other documentatoin sources. Compiling Files With Several Compilation Units. ----------------------------------------------- GNAT can only deal with files that contain a single Ada compilation unit. However, since it is an established style for certain types of programs to contain more than one compilation in a file, such as in test suites, a simple utility program, "gnatchop", is provided to preprocess the file and split it several other files, one for each compilation unit. gnatchop takes a filename with any extension. This name can basically be anything. Usage : gnatchop [-k] [-r] [-s] [-w] filename [directory] k limit filenames to 8 characters r generate source reference pragmas s generate a compilation script w overwrite existing filenames filename source file directory directory to place split files (default is the current directory) For example, assume archive contains package spec part1, package body part1, package spec part2, package body part2.adb and subprogram part3 in any sequence. "gnatchop archive" will create five files in the current directory called part1.ads, part1.adb, part2.ads, part2.adb, part3.adb. The optional directory argument places all the split files in that directory rather than the current directory. The directory must already exist otherwise gnatchop will reject it. If at least one of the files to be split already exists, gnatchop will issue a message and exit unless the -w flag is used to overwrite existing files. The -r flag causes source reference pragmas to be generated at the start of each file written. These pragmas will cause error message references and debugging source information to refer back to the original unchopped files. This is appropriate if you intend to maintain the program in unchopped form. The -s flag generates a script which can be used to compile all the units contained in the original source file. Suppose that you wanted to compile all the units contained in a given file called "archive" with some specific options like -gnatv, -O2 and -g. The gnatchop with -s option will generate a script with the appropriate extension depending on the the operating system. Then the script is invoked with the options following at the end as given below. gnatchop -s archive In Unix: sh archive.sh -gnatv -O2 -g In Dos : archive.bat -gnatv -O2 -g In OS/2: archive.cmd -gnatv -O2 -g The -k flag krunches the names of the units to be 8 characters followed by the ads or adb extension. Currently, if you want to specify more than one flag, you need to specify them separately. For example, if you want to split archive.adb and specify both the -s and the -w flags, type "gnatchop -s -w archive" instead of "gnatchop -sw archive". This limitation will be lifted in the near future. Note: gnatchop works fine for the case of a single compilation unit in a file, and this is useful in dealing with files that do not have names satisfying the GNAT naming requirements. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1996-04-03 0:00 ` Tom Griest 0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Tom Griest @ 1996-04-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <dewar.828449600@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: [example of gnatchop error in gcc.hlp doc on Win95 platform snipped] >OOPS! This indeed is a goof. Our documentation (gnatinfo.txt) of course >does not contain this error, but apparently Tom Griest (the source of >a helpful response, but also apparently responsble for the confusion >in the first place :-) slipped up in creating this gcc.hlp file (which >is not something we have anything to do with). Actually, I did not create the help file, but one of my employees did, which ultimately I take responsibilty for. I thought she had just "included" the then-current gnatinfo.txt, but it seems in this case she altered it beyond added the hyperlinks. The text seems so close, and yet so far.... :) I do know that at one time the gnatchop batch file did not work on NT, but I'm at a loss as to how it got scrambled. We do include the gnatinfo.txt too. I plan to take a sweep over the help files, but I was waiting for the release of the gnat users guide. Maybe I should get the release from SGI. In any case, this error has been corrected in the help sources. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* GNAT's gnatchp @ 1996-03-30 0:00 Peter J. Pierce 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Tom Griest 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Peter J. Pierce @ 1996-03-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I have been trying to get the GNAT utility "gnatchp" to work without success. I have strictly followed the documentation in the help file gcc.hlp which was distributed with version 3.01 for Windows95/NT. I have tried it both with version 3.01 for Windows95/NT and with version 3.03 on a SUN. I get the display "splitting filename.ext into:" with each but then nothing happens. In both cases I have changed directory to where the source code is located. Any hints? Thank you in advance. -- Peter Pierce 3/29/96 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-03-30 0:00 Peter J. Pierce @ 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Tom Griest 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Tom Griest @ 1996-03-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: pierce Peter J. Pierce <pierce@patriot.net> writes: >I have been trying to get the GNAT utility "gnatchp" to work >without success. > >I have strictly followed the documentation >in the help file gcc.hlp which was distributed with >version 3.01 for Windows95/NT. I have tried it both with >version 3.01 for Windows95/NT and with version 3.03 on a SUN. Well, I can't speak for the Sun version, but on Win32 platforms you want to use "gnatchop" not "gnatchp". This is especially confusing since there is a gnatchp.exe program that is invoked by gnatchop.bat. I think in future versions, it might be a good idea to give gnatchp a different name so that this type of error doesn't happen. I'll submit a comment to the list that is involved in maintaining gnat, since we would have to coordinate all the ports to change at the same time. -Tom ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-03-30 0:00 Peter J. Pierce 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Tom Griest @ 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Richard Pitre 1 sibling, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1996-03-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "I have been trying to get the GNAT utility "gnatchp" to work without success. I have strictly followed the documentation" Well that's a nice contradiction. There is no such thing as the GNAT utility "gnatchp", so it would be *quite* hard to follow the documentation, strictly or otherwise, on gnatchp, since there is none. Undoubtedly you read the documentation or GNATCHOP, not gnatchp. Changing names in commands does not come under the category' of strictly following documentation I am afraid :-) :-) Nearly all difficulties with GNAT come from not following the documentation exactly in our experience (I mean intallation difficulties here). One of my students in my class wrote a note today saying that books in CS were useless, the only way to learn is by example! I replied that the ability to read documentation accurately is an important skill! I guess this is a nice example :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Richard Pitre 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Richard Pitre @ 1996-04-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <dewar.828333453@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: > "I have been trying to get the GNAT utility "gnatchp" to work > without success. > > I have strictly followed the documentation" > > Well that's a nice contradiction. There is no such thing as the > GNAT utility "gnatchp", so it would be *quite* hard to follow > the documentation, strictly or otherwise, on gnatchp, since > there is none. > > Undoubtedly you read the documentation or GNATCHOP, not gnatchp. > Changing names in commands does not come under the category' > of strictly following documentation I am afraid :-) :-) > > Nearly all difficulties with GNAT come from not following the > documentation exactly in our experience (I mean intallation > difficulties here). > > One of my students in my class wrote a note today saying that books > in CS were useless, the only way to learn is by example! I replied > that the ability to read documentation accurately is an important > skill! I guess this is a nice example :-) The ability to write documentation that makes simple and obvious things look simple and obvious is also an important skill. It sounds like your documentation could use a little rearrangment so that priority items like installation, got priority billing. richard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT's gnatchp 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Richard Pitre @ 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1996-04-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard said "The ability to write documentation that makes simple and obvious things look simple and obvious is also an important skill. It sounds like your documentation could use a little rearrangment so that priority items like installation, got priority billing." Actually, most cases of installation difficulties with the ACT versions of GNAT have to do with experienced users figuring that they know enough to deliberately not follow the directions :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1996-04-03 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 1996-04-01 0:00 GNAT's gnatchp Peter J. Pierce 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1996-04-03 0:00 ` Tom Griest -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 1996-03-30 0:00 Peter J. Pierce 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Tom Griest 1996-03-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Richard Pitre 1996-04-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
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