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From: dewar@gnat.com
Subject: Re: Elaborate compile-time error messages (was: GNAT Stream Read ...)
Date: 1999/01/07
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 <76uv4j$njr$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <1999Jan6.072356.1@eisner>
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Date: 1999-01-07T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <1999Jan6.072356.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
> In article <76uv4j$njr$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
dewar@gnat.com writes:
>
> That certainly is a high quality error message.  I am
> curious as to why it is not the default.  Is there some
> set of programmers who get really mad at having the
> compiler be smarter than they are about the
> nature of a problem.

First, to be clear, the *error messages* are exactly the
same in default mode, and the error messages give column
numbers. The difference is in printing out the source line,
and flagging the column of the error. Most programmers do
NOT want this as the default, and note in particular that
when you are using an editor that is integrated with the
compiler, e.g. EMACS, the verbosity of -gnatv just gets in
the way and is unhelpful.

> I first used Ada with DEC Ada, where the error messages
> are also quite complete, and it has never occurred to me
> to look for a way to make them shorter.

Yes, but many people feel that the messages from the DEC
Ada compiler are *too* verbose at times.

If you like long and detailed messages, and don't mind
redundant messages (GNAT works hard to eliminate them!),
then you might also try the -gnatf switch which stands for
full error messages, and gives additional detailed messages
in some cases, e.g. every occurrence of an undefined
identifier will be flagged -- normally only the first is
flagged.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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