Re: Ada Mode and GNAT Project files

[deadlyhead <deadlyhead@gmail.com>]

On Aug 15, 1:56 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de>
wrote:
> I'd vote against a complete replacement and in favor
> of a simple abstraction:
>
>  - where to find files and
>
>  - where to find navigation information
>
> (such as can be extracted from .ali files).  Then it is still
> possible to steer the compiler with a -P switch and maybe
> a Lisp variable for the "external" project settings.
>
> One reason is that GNAT project files are, well, GNAT specific.
> They are not standard, though open, but other Ada compilers
> use different project descriptions, use different options,
> and so on.
>   However, all compilers need to know where to find sources,
> and many if not all produce information that can be used
> for navigation.

Well, at the moment, Ada Mode for Emacs is GNAT specific.  This makes
perfect sense, though, as both GNAT and Emacs are part of the GNU
project.  There's nothing stopping proprietary compiler developers
from contributing their own generalizing patches to Ada Mode if they
like, but it's unreasonable, I think, to have a free software project
try to accommodate proprietary vendors' products without access to
their documentation in a free and open manner.

With that out of the way, a different approach would be to add a Lisp
variable to Ada Mode which indicates whether a GNAT *.gpr (or some
other vendors project file) is to be used, and having Ada Mode simply
use that rather than the current (or recently current) .adp files.  It
would take care of the general navigation information you're looking
for, but still provide the added power of whatever project facilities
are provided by the compilation system.