Re: Fun with WebAda/GNAT

[ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)]

Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:

>dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>> We have discussed this, but path names in typical Unix systems are so
>> long that this generates an unacceptable level of noise in the normal
>> case.

>If you're willing to toss out clarity and exactness in favor of
>aesthetic pleasantness, then so be it.  It's your compiler and your
>error messages...

Surely there is a compromise possible?
It was my understanding that Gnat already by default buffers error
messages.  Now, *path* names may be long, but that's mainly because
they include a directory prefix as well as a file name.

So, compress!  Instead of
	a-long-dir/sub-dir/foo/uck.adb:27: ...
	a-long-dir/sub-dir/foo/ick.adb:19: ...
	a-long-dir/sub-dir/bar/zoo.adb:10: ...
	a-long-dir/sub-dir/bar/goo.adb:99: ...
generate
	#d1=a-long-dir/sub-dir
	#d2=$d1/foo
	$d2/uck.adb:27: ...
	$d2/ick.adb:19: ...
	#d3=$d1/bar
	$d3/zoo.adb:10: ...
	$d3/goo.adb:99: ...

This can be automatically generated from a full-form error list.
A full-form error list can be automatically generated from it.
It combines the merits of brevity AND exactness.

For what it's worth, when students have a problem, it is often useful
to be able to see from their transcript whether the problem was in one
of their own files or whether it was something from the library path.

-- 
Australian citizen since 14 August 1996.  *Now* I can vote the xxxs out!
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.