Gnat and TCP/IP

Gnat and TCP/IP

[Matthew Benjamin]

Dear Folks, 

I'm just becoming familiar with Ada/GNAT, and am trying to determine
how feasible it would be as an implementation language for client/server
database type applications. . .

Is there a standard TCP/IP implementation for Ada and the GNU Ada compiler?
You would expect so, but I haven't heard of one.  (The PAL archives one 
for VAX/Verdix, but...)

Are people just using external C code?


Matt
matt@imi.imicro.com

Re: Gnat and TCP/IP

[Chet Kackman]

Matt

  When you refer to "PAL", what are you refering to? I have been looking for
a TCP/IP binding for ADA specifically DEC Ada running on OVMS/AXP. I have been
Posting for info for about a week with no results. If you have a location for
me to look at could you mail me a URL. Oh, by the way, you are correct about
Verdix, they supply the TCP/IP bindings with there compiler.

                       Thanks

                         Chet Kackman@GDEsystems.com

PAL site

[John Howard]

The Public Ada Library (PAL)
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/pal.html

Public Ada Library (PAL) mirror at Walnut Creek
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/ada/pal.html

AJPO hosts another PAL mirror on sw-eng.
ftp://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/public/PAL
http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/public/PAL/pal.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- John Howard <jhoward@sky.net>               -- Team Ada  Team OS/2 --
--                                             -- Keramos             --
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Psalm 22:30-31

Re: Gnat and TCP/IP

[Tom Griest]

dickery@umich.edu (Matthew Benjamin) writes:

>I'm just becoming familiar with Ada/GNAT, and am trying to determine
>how feasible it would be as an implementation language for client/server
>database type applications. . .
>
>Is there a standard TCP/IP implementation for Ada and the GNU Ada compiler?
>You would expect so, but I haven't heard of one.  (The PAL archives one 
>for VAX/Verdix, but...)

We are using the Win32Ada bindings for the sockets implementation on
Win32 (WinNT/Win95).  These are pretty close to the Berkeley Sockets
(but there are a few minor differences).  You can get the bindings
from sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/public/source/bindings/win32ada
(or something like that).  If you have a slow net connection and/or
you're not really interested at all in the other i/f source, send
me email and I'll just send you the winsock package.

>Are people just using external C code?
no

-Tom

Re: Gnat and TCP/IP

[Robert Dewar]

Matthew asked:

"I'm just becoming familiar with Ada/GNAT, and am trying to determine
how feasible it would be as an implementation language for client/server
database type applications. . .

Is there a standard TCP/IP implementation for Ada and the GNU Ada compiler?
You would expect so, but I haven't heard of one.  (The PAL archives one
for VAX/Verdix, but...)"

Why not use the facilities of the distribution annex for this purpose,
instead of working at such a low level?

Re: Gnat and TCP/IP

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Benjamin <dickery@umich.edu> writes:

Matthew> Dear Folks, I'm just becoming familiar with Ada/GNAT, and am
Matthew> trying to determine how feasible it would be as an
Matthew> implementation language for client/server database type
Matthew> applications. . .

It's as feasible as with other languages such as C, since you can
import any C library function using "pragma Import".

But if your entire application is going to be written in Ada, then you
might consider using the Distributed System Annex which enforces
strong typing and version consistency over a distributed
program. Moreover, you do not have to write your own communication
protocol since everything you need is either in the DSA libraries or
generated by the compiler. Exceptions are of course handled correctly
(you may want to check the Annex E of your Reference Manual if you
want more information about this).

Matthew> Is there a standard TCP/IP implementation for Ada and the GNU
Matthew> Ada compiler? You would expect so, but I haven't heard of
Matthew> one.  (The PAL archives one for VAX/Verdix, but...)

AFAIK there is no de-facto standard TCP/IP implementation for Ada95;
an implementation of the DSA for GNAT is already in alpha-test phase
(contact distribution@act-europe.gnat.com if you want more information
on this) and uses its own implementation of the TCP/IP
interface. Unfortunately, this one is not very well suited for general
TCP/IP usage (this was not its goal).

Matthew> Are people just using external C code?

People use internal Ada code :-) The only thing you have to do is
translate the "*.h" C headers into "*.ads" Ada specifications. C uses
no magic, it calls library functions, and Ada can do the same :-)

  Sam
-- 
"La cervelle des petits enfants, ca doit avoir comme un petit gout de noisette"
                                                       Charles Baudelaire