From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,489591d353106d0c
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: griest-tom@cs.yale.edu (Tom Griest)
Subject: Re: Code compatibility of GNAT on Win/NT with other compilers
Date: 1996/05/16
Message-ID: <4nfo2vINNi67@RA.DEPT.CS.YALE.EDU>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 155168617
references: <4nd3fr$26aq@info4.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
cc: michael@ifr.luftfahrt.uni-stuttgart.de
keywords: Ada, Windows, Object File Formats
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-05-16T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


michael@ifr.luftfahrt.uni-stuttgart.de writes:

>we are currently considering to use GNAT on WindowsNT. One question
>that arises in this context is how compatible GNAT is with other
>compilers. I have almost no experience with the Microsoft world because
>I am a Unix guy. On a Unix machine there is normally only one standard
>object format and only one linker and so it has never been a problem
>for me to mix different languages. But in the Microsoft world this
>seems to be different. Could anybody please shed some light on this.

On Windows 32-bit platforms (Win95 and WinNT) the standard object
file format is COFF, however, COFF does allow for "optional headers"
and corresponding sections which can contain implementation specific 
information.  The Microsoft VC++ compilers use the .debug section 
with an IMAGE_DEBUG_TYPE set to either COFF or CODEVIEW.
For the most part there is no problem linking MS object files with
GNAT generated object files.  I've never seen a problem when using
the MS linker, but 'ld' can still have some problems with some of
the oddball MS files (certain types of C++ stuff I believe).  

-Tom