RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Comp.Lang.Ada

Robert Dewar is probably correct for the short term concerning GtkAda.
However, for the long term, please visit www.w3.org. XML does math, has
vectors, data types, forms, etc and is programming language and operating
system independent. I believe that XML and the Web is where the software
action will be.

Although JAVA is of interest to the language experts, the required
functionality is JAVASCRIPT. Ada must work with XML both on the client and
server side. It should be possible to use XML forms and other elements for
screen generation and to do this from Ada. This means that one could design
screens using a commercial web page creation tool.

Amusingly, Microsoft was technically correct on the browser being integrated
into the operating system. First, the Network was the computer; now, the Web
is the computer. Of course, the objects which were used to create Explorer
could be documented so that a competitive product could interface with them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Dewar [mailto:robert_dewar@my-deja.com]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 6:03 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


In article <383985C6.F36C0D0C@icn.siemens.de>,
  Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
> applications with LINUX) ?


Probably the best recommendation for writing graphical
interfaces from Ada on Linux is to use GtkAda.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Alfred Hilscher]

Hello there,

does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
applications with LINUX) ?

RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Comp.Lang.Ada

Robert Dewar is probably correct for the short term concerning GtkAda.
However, for the long term, please visit www.w3.org. XML does math, has
vectors, data types, forms, etc and is programming language and operating
system independent. I believe that XML and the Web is where the software
action will be.

Although JAVA is of interest to the language experts, the required
functionality is JAVASCRIPT. Ada must work with XML both on the client and
server side. It should be possible to use XML forms and other elements for
screen generation and to do this from Ada. This means that one could design
screens using a commercial web page creation tool.

Amusingly, Microsoft was technically correct on the browser being integrated
into the operating system. First, the Network was the computer; now, the Web
is the computer. Of course, the objects which were used to create Explorer
could be documented so that a competitive product could interface with them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Dewar [mailto:robert_dewar@my-deja.com]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 6:03 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


In article <383985C6.F36C0D0C@icn.siemens.de>,
  Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
> applications with LINUX) ?


Probably the best recommendation for writing graphical
interfaces from Ada on Linux is to use GtkAda.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Vladimir Olensky]

Preben Randhol wrote in message ...
>"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:
>
>| Robert Dewar is probably correct for the short term concerning GtkAda.
>| However, for the long term, please visit www.w3.org. XML does math, has
>| vectors, data types, forms, etc and is programming language and operating
>| system independent. I believe that XML and the Web is where the software
>| action will be.
>
>I'm cannot say that I see the relevance to XML here? The question was
>about a grafical toolkit not markup language.


Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
application.
I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.

Moreover,  this approach is the  universal approach to interact with
embedded applications. Now many comm. hardware manufactures use
embedded HTPP  server to provide remote control over hardware from
any network machine equipped with the browser which works
as a user GUI embedded into HTML document (e.g. Cisco
products family). I should say that this is extremely convenient
(I am using that to work with equipment).

More recent example is Erlang OTP that was mentioned recently
in one of the threads.
Among several standard modules that provide  user interface
(including Java, Tck/Tl ) it contain Internet Services Application (INETS)
module that is used to provide discussed above functionality.

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

| Robert Dewar is probably correct for the short term concerning GtkAda.
| However, for the long term, please visit www.w3.org. XML does math, has
| vectors, data types, forms, etc and is programming language and operating
| system independent. I believe that XML and the Web is where the software
| action will be.

I'm cannot say that I see the relevance to XML here? The question was
about a grafical toolkit not markup language.

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

"Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> writes:

| Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
| User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
| application.
| I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.

One can do this easily with GtkAda :-) I don't agree that using
JAVAScript is a good strategy though.

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[David Botton]

They are documented (well mostly). I generated a binding to them using
BindCOM (http://www.adapower.com/com) and have done some neet stuff with
them. I have though been strugling with an issue related to them for
sometime now where calls made from Visual C++ work, but not from non-Visual
XXX products (ie. GCC, GNAT, etc). Strange..................................
since this doesn't appear with any non-MS COM objects, ever.

David Botton


Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote in message ...
Of course, the objects which were used to create Explorer
>could be documented so that a competitive product could interface with
them.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[David Botton]

I agree very much with you. What is needed is a simple HTTP server written
in Ada so we don't ended up married to Explorer.

So far the only workable solutions along these lines (an app on the desktop
producing dynamic browser contents from Ada) with out an HTTP server I have
been able to produce uses COM bindings to MS Internet Explorer. A while back
Robert Leif sent me a message about trying to do this sort of thing with Ada
(Sorry RL, I didn't produce an answer yet), but it seems the only reasonable
non-Microsoft way is to embed a very simple HTTP server in the Ada code.

It would also be possible to set up connections between JavaScript and Ada
using either AdaApplettes or TCP/CORBA/COM connections to Ada code from a
Java proxy to the JavaScript.

David Botton

PS. I wish I had the time to throw together a little http server (it isn't
that much work) for Ada, but I am swamped right now including working to get
out a more robust and concrete release of COM tools for Ada. If anyone takes
up this project let us know!

>Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
>User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
>application.
>I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.

RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif

To: Preben Randol et al.
"I'm cannot say that I see the relevance to XML here? The question was
about a grafical toolkit not markup language."

You build the graphical tool kit out of the markup language rendering
system. It would then be possible to build a windowing system (GUI) based on
Ada tasking. The markup language is for rendering. It greatly facilitates
creating windows or frames. When one uses a typical Internet application,
the material one sees is predominantly based on HTML and its environment.
The use of XML permits the creation of forms, equations, vector graphics
etc.

I never said that XML was in and of itself sufficient. However, the
combination of Ada and XML would provide the type of technological
discontinuity that permits a change in technology. Namely, we go from
hacking with Windows to software engineering with Ada and XML.

-----Original Message-----
From: Preben Randhol [mailto:randhol@pvv.org]
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 3:14 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

| Robert Dewar is probably correct for the short term concerning GtkAda.
| However, for the long term, please visit www.w3.org. XML does math, has
| vectors, data types, forms, etc and is programming language and operating
| system independent. I believe that XML and the Web is where the software
| action will be.

I'm cannot say that I see the relevance to XML here? The question was
about a grafical toolkit not markup language.

--
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Fraser]

paene lacrimavi postquam Preben Randhol <randhol@pvv.org> scripsit:

>That you actually have Motif and most ordinary users don't, as it is
>not free.

There's always Lesstif (http://www.lesstif.org) which is source
compatible with Motif 1.2, and (it seems from reading their latest
news) turns out to be binary compatible as well!

A long while ago, a compiled the Ada Motif binding against Lesstif,
and I'm pretty sure it worked quite handily.  I've since switched
to Gtk though.

Fraser.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert Dewar]

In article <383985C6.F36C0D0C@icn.siemens.de>,
  Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
> applications with LINUX) ?


Probably the best recommendation for writing graphical
interfaces from Ada on Linux is to use GtkAda.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 19:04:54 +0100, Alfred Hilscher
<Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> wrote: 

>does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
>applications with LINUX) ?

Not that I'm aware of.

If you want to write graphical applications for X-Windows then you
need a binding to either X itself (ie. Xlib), or a toolkit (ie. Motif,
GTK, QT etc.).

X-Windows is a scary and mystical place, where men are men and Orcs
have 18 HD each[1]. Don't go there.

There are bindings to Xt and GTK that I'm aware of, there's RPMs
available from http://www.gnuada.org

KDE itself doesn't, AFAIK, provide any graphical capability in and of
itself, but builds on top of QT, and there isn't an Ada binding to QT
AFAIK.

- Aidan

[1] RPG joke, sorry.
-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <slrn83jogj.1mn.aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk>, aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk (Aidan Skinner) writes:

> If you want to write graphical applications for X-Windows then you
> need a binding to either X itself (ie. Xlib), or a toolkit (ie. Motif,
> GTK, QT etc.).
> 
> X-Windows is a scary and mystical place, where men are men and Orcs
> have 18 HD each[1]. Don't go there.

While I don't do raw graphics (plotting splines in a window),
the combination of X-Windows and Motif is quite reasonable for
doing GUIs.  I recently added a GUI to a new program that would
otherwise have been only text-based.  The process was relatively
painless and the results were much better than the text-based
interface (which still exists for systems on which X-Windows
is not installed).

Larry Kilgallen

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[David Starner]

On 23 Nov 1999 12:16:27 +0100, Preben Randhol <randhol@pvv.org> wrote:
>Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> writes:
>
>| Hello there,
>| 
>| does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
>| applications with LINUX) ?
>
>KDE is written in C++ which makes making bindings to other languages
>much harder. 

Actually, with GNAT, interfacing to C++ is no more difficult than interfacing
to C. The bindings aren't written yet, but I'm sure the KDE team would 
appreciate a well-written set of interfaces to Ada, and it's a task that's
more tedious than it is difficult.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
I see no trend at all, except toward women playing mean and ugly 
sociopaths who are good at killing and who enjoy dark powers. Maybe 
it's just my friends?
	-- Dr. Kromm, on who plays what type of character in RPGs

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> writes:

| Hello there,
| 
| does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
| applications with LINUX) ?

KDE is written in C++ which makes making bindings to other languages
much harder. Personally I recommend Gtk+ and GtkAda instead. Look at
http://www.gtk.org (you can also look at http://www.gnome.org if you
haven't already)

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Dale Pontius]

In article <383985C6.F36C0D0C@icn.siemens.de>,
        Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> writes:
> Hello there,
>
> does anyone know about Ada bindings for KDE (to write grafical
> applications with LINUX) ?

You may be in for some problems, here. KDE uses the QT toolkit,
which comes native with C++ bindings. I'm under the impression
that KDE native bindings are C++, as well. I'm also under the
impression that nothing talks well with raw C++, so you first
need to find some wrappers, (probably C) and then either convert
them to Ada, or build Ada wrappers around them. (wrapper-wrappers,
I guess.)

Dale Pontius
NOT speaking for IBM

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) writes:

| While I don't do raw graphics (plotting splines in a window),
| the combination of X-Windows and Motif is quite reasonable for

That you actually have Motif and most ordinary users don't, as it is
not free.

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

dvdeug@x8b4e53cd. (David Starner) writes:

| Actually, with GNAT, interfacing to C++ is no more difficult than interfacing
| to C. The bindings aren't written yet, but I'm sure the KDE team would 

Oh I thought it was. But at least for languages in general I think my
opinion is true.

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

"Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> writes:

| But more generally all depends on what one wants (level of GUI
| complexity) and  type of an application.
| 
| The best thing in such (XML with Java Script) approach  that one
| does not need anything except browser.
| I think that this is the most serious argument.

[...]

| Another good argument is that such XML (or HTML) document  which
| implements user GUI via Java Script  should not be embedded into
| the application code. It may be stored separately and can be easily
| modified (localized).

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but GtkAda can also read an XML file to
set up the GUI interface as you want it. Thus you don't have to embed
it into the application code. 

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 22:53:53 -0800, Robert C. Leif,
Ph.D. <rleif@rleif.com> wrote: 

>server side. It should be possible to use XML forms and other elements for
>screen generation and to do this from Ada. This means that one could design
>screens using a commercial web page creation tool.

You still need some form of interface between your GUI and the XML
though, GTK has this in form of Glade (http://glade.pn.org) and
libglade.

- Aidan

-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:51:37 -0500, David Botton <David@Botton.com> wrote:

>PS. I wish I had the time to throw together a little http server (it isn't
>that much work) for Ada, but I am swamped right now including working to get
>out a more robust and concrete release of COM tools for Ada. If anyone takes
>up this project let us know!

I'm intending to put HTTP into libra RSN. The client side will get
done first, to match the SMTP and NNTP functions (I figure this are
more immediatley useful), but it's more or less trivial to reverse the
thin client-side bindings to the server side and I intend to do this
almost immediately.

- Aidan

-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Vladimir Olensky]

Preben Randhol wrote in message ...
>"Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>| Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
>| User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
>| application.
>| I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.
>
>One can do this easily with GtkAda :-) I don't agree that using
>JAVAScript is a good strategy though.


Yes I agree that anything could  be done easily when you have needed
tool (or set of different tools)  at hand.
And I have nothing against GtkAda :-).
From what I've read and seen I have very good impression.

But more generally all depends on what one wants (level of GUI
complexity) and  type of an application.

The best thing in such (XML with Java Script) approach  that one
does not need anything except browser.
I think that this is the most serious argument.

Another good argument is that such XML (or HTML) document  which
implements user GUI via Java Script  should not be embedded into
the application code. It may be stored separately and can be easily
modified (localized).

I know this not in words  from others, but in reality, as I am using that
when remotely control  equipment that I support.

I understand this as a some trend. No wonder that recently created Erlang
comes with INETS module that can be used to provide such functionality.
As I am telecommunications engineer and not a pure programmer I see
many things from different angle compared with pure programmers (actually
I know both sides).

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[tmoran]

> What is needed is a simple HTTP server written in Ada so we don't
> ended up married to Explorer.
   Do you mean server, or browser?
> a little http server (it isn't that much work) for Ada, ...
   Looking at RFC 2616, "little" isn't the word that comes to mind,
even after tossing everything related to cacheing.  What do you
have in mind?

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Geoff Bull]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> 
> > What is needed is a simple HTTP server written in Ada so we don't
> > ended up married to Explorer.
>    Do you mean server, or browser?
> > a little http server (it isn't that much work) for Ada, ...
>    Looking at RFC 2616, "little" isn't the word that comes to mind,
> even after tossing everything related to cacheing.  What do you
> have in mind?


http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Networking/Webserver/index.html

"The following code implements a simple, multithreaded HTTP server in a
few hundred lines of Java code."

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

| You build the graphical tool kit out of the markup language rendering
| system. It would then be possible to build a windowing system (GUI) based on
| Ada tasking. The markup language is for rendering. It greatly facilitates
| creating windows or frames. When one uses a typical Internet application,
| the material one sees is predominantly based on HTML and its environment.
| The use of XML permits the creation of forms, equations, vector graphics
| etc.
| 
| I never said that XML was in and of itself sufficient. However, the
| combination of Ada and XML would provide the type of technological
| discontinuity that permits a change in technology. Namely, we go from
| hacking with Windows to software engineering with Ada and XML.

And GtkAda makes this possible, without having to use Javascript
too ;-)

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Geogg Bull et al.

I looked at the JAVA code in the URL from the SUN JAVA site. However, being
neither competent in JAVA nor an expert on servers, I still do not know if
this example is relevant to my question. This question was initially posed
to Team-Ada. Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML that
will work totally on the client computer (PC)? I wish to use HTML forms as
the front-end for a project. There is obvious commercial utility to do this
under Windows 98. However, for hard real-time applications any of the
following operating systems would permit my application to be the sole
executing software on the system. This application can not be interrupted
except perhaps by CTRL-Alt_Del or the reset button. I believe that this
should be possible with DOS, Windows CE, or Linux with an Ada core.
Thank you.
Bob Leif

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Bull [mailto:geoff@research.canon.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 9:38 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


tmoran@bix.com wrote:
>
> > What is needed is a simple HTTP server written in Ada so we don't
> > ended up married to Explorer.
>    Do you mean server, or browser?
> > a little http server (it isn't that much work) for Ada, ...
>    Looking at RFC 2616, "little" isn't the word that comes to mind,
> even after tossing everything related to cacheing.  What do you
> have in mind?


http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Networking/Webserv
er/index.html

"The following code implements a simple, multithreaded HTTP server in a
few hundred lines of Java code."

RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Preben Randhol

Do you have an example where this all takes place on the same PC?

-----Original Message-----
From: Preben Randhol [mailto:randhol@pvv.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 1:12 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

| You build the graphical tool kit out of the markup language rendering
| system. It would then be possible to build a windowing system (GUI) based
on
| Ada tasking. The markup language is for rendering. It greatly facilitates
| creating windows or frames. When one uses a typical Internet application,
| the material one sees is predominantly based on HTML and its environment.
| The use of XML permits the creation of forms, equations, vector graphics
| etc.
|
| I never said that XML was in and of itself sufficient. However, the
| combination of Ada and XML would provide the type of technological
| discontinuity that permits a change in technology. Namely, we go from
| hacking with Windows to software engineering with Ada and XML.

And GtkAda makes this possible, without having to use Javascript
too ;-)

--
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 14:17:43 GMT, Larry Kilgallen
<kilgallen@eisner.decus.org> wrote: 

>the combination of X-Windows and Motif is quite reasonable for
>doing GUIs.  I recently added a GUI to a new program that would

Yes, of course. Using a toolkit on top of X is as pleasent as GUI
design can be IMO, but doing it "raw" as it were is a remarkably scary
experience. 

- Aidan
-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Al Christians]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> Personally I recommend Gtk+ and GtkAda instead. Look at
> http://www.gtk.org (you can also look at http://www.gnome.org if you
> haven't already)
> 

I downloaded GtkAda Ada (v1.3.3 for Win 32) yesterday.  The docs that
came in the distribution showed a fairly long list of widgets not 
supported by Gate.   Today I found the newer documentation that gave a 
much shorter list of not supported widgets.  This is good, but this new
documentation (from Oct 1999) is newer than the executable I got 
yesterday (from 1999-07-30).  Are the executable in 1.3.3 and the 
latest documentation in sync?

TIA.


Al

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[tmoran]

> http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Networking/Webserver/index.html
>
> "The following code implements a simple, multithreaded HTTP server in a
> few hundred lines of Java code."
 The same (simple) functionality using Ada with CLAW is 3/4 as big.
The only significant changes are that I don't show a directory list
if given the name of a directory with no index.html file (that does
not seem to be usually done, and seems like a security problem), and
I reject file names containing "..", "*", or "?".

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Geoff Bull]

Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:

> However, being neither competent in JAVA nor an expert on
> servers, I still do not know if this example is relevant to
> my question.

> This question was initially posed to Team-Ada. 
> Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML
> that will work totally on the client computer (PC)?
> I wish to use HTML forms as the front-end for a project.

Sorry, I had lost sight of your question.

The point of the Java web server code was merely to 
support David Botton's view that embedding an http server
wouldn't be "that much work", a point of view that has been
challenged.

You need understand neither Java nor servers to see
from the Java code that an embedded http server can be very
small (even though this one can't process forms).

Geoff

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Preben Randhol]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

| From: Bob Leif
| To: Preben Randhol
| 
| Do you have an example where this all takes place on the same PC?

Now I'm not following you. Please elaborate.

-- 
Preben Randhol                     "Marriage is when you get to keep
[randhol@pvv.org]                   your girl and don't have to give
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]      her back to her parents." (Eric, 6)

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[David Botton]

This is __highly__ relevant to your question.

What is the big deal to have an Ada application that embeds a small web
server. Then start up your browser with http://localhost:PICK-A-PORT-HERE
(or have a shell script/bat file that runs it with the URL) and THERE YOU
GO!! Same PC as the APP.

For example:

The 1997 Britannica CD was written this way, the 1998 uses IE3.02 Web COM
objects.

The non-COM method is of course portable and has the advantage that the app
can also be run from a different machine then the one where the Ada
application is running. (If you wanted you could detect where the connection
is coming from and refuse non-LocalHost connections also.)

The Java code posted just proves my point. Add to that some simple handling
of forms (and XML if you must) and there you go.

If I could spare a couple of hours I would put such an app together, but I
don't have them right now.

David Botton


Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote in message ...
 This question was initially posed
>to Team-Ada. Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML that
>will work totally on the client computer (PC)?

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Tarjei Jensen]

Vladimir Olensky wrote:
>    I think that it would be better if something like this would be done
>in pure Ada. I know this is not simple.  Doug Schmidt spent many
>years for all that.  But he looked into the future and his guess
>was right.
>
>  If similar communication subsystem would be a part of a standard
>or semi-standard Ada environment  it could provide an excellent
>platform  for many great things and make Ada more competitive
>in some areas where C++ has better positions.


You're not the only one who think along those lines.

I'm working on a Ada binding to the socket API. Progress is very slow since I
only do this in my less than copious spare time.

The reason that I want my own binding, is that I want something that "works
with" Ada, not just something that Ada tolerates. I want the compiler to catch
as many as possible of my mistakes.

I have discovered that is Ada vendors that supported interface.c were required
to supply basic datatypes like size_t, time_t for the C libraries, then life
would be easier.


>Importance of communications increases every year.


True.

I think network programming is a field where Ada could do really well if the
right examples existed and this theme were used by educators.

This is one reason why it is vital to get a good, portable and freely usable
socket interface for Ada.

After that we can begin building service libraries for such tings as ftp,
telnet, http, etc.

I believe that network programming (with the right library) could be the ideal
theme for teaching programming. I believe that students will get a sense of
achievement  when their program works. E.g. getting their program to retrieve
the time of day from a server and displaying it. Since the theme is very
practical it should help motivating the students. And it would be easy to vary
the difficulty according to the students level of competence.

Since I am not an educator and have no teaching experience I could be entirely
wrong about this. It would not surprise me at all if I was completely wrong.


Greetings,

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Vladimir Olensky]

Tarjei Jensen wrote in message <81lkb2$mra3@ftp.kvaerner.com>...
>
>Vladimir Olensky wrote:

>>  If similar communication subsystem would be a part of a standard
>>or semi-standard Ada environment  it could provide an excellent
>>platform  for many great things and make Ada more competitive
>>in some areas where C++ has better positions.

>You're not the only one who think along those lines.


That's very nice :-)

>>Importance of communications increases every year.

>True.
>I think network programming is a field where Ada could do really well if
the
>right examples existed and this theme were used by educators.


You may find them in CLAW from RR Software.

Actually I was talking not only about network programming  but
about communications in a more broader sense where this
particular aspect is the only some fraction  of the whole.

I see such subsystem consisting of several layers where the lowest
layers provide thread safe OO wrappers  to all the communications
capabilities  of the underlying OS including serial/parallel communications,
mailslots, named pipes, memory mapped files, sockets etc.
The upper layer uses all that  to build higher level services including
different data streams, TCP/IP services such as HTTP, FTP, TFTP,
SNMP, NTTP, Telnet  etc.
User can have access to the services at the needed level and combine
them to create what is needed for particular application.

I like the way the network  services are  done in Java.
Very convenient.
Even Serial/Parallel communication classes are already
available from Sun and are considered now to be part of the
Java standard.

When I first encountered ACE (last year)  I had a nice surprise that
everything I was thinking about had been already implemented using
advanced design patterns technique.
The bad thing about all this that it was C++ and not Ada.

Another nice surprise recently  was Erlang  with its communications
modules.

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Vladimir Olensky]

David Botton wrote in message <81k70k$197u$1@news.gate.net>...

>What is the big deal to have an Ada application that embeds a small web
>server.

>The Java code posted just proves my point. Add to that some simple
>handling of forms (and XML if you must) and there you go.


Another HTTP Server example written in C++  from  very well known
Douglas C. Schmidt is located at:
   http://siesta.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE_wrappers/apps/JAWS/server/

This HTTP server comes with the ACE ( The Adaptive Communication
Environment) source code distribution.

ACE home page is  http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html

   ACE has now become almost de-facto standard  in industry and
has a lot of industrial sponsors and users  (big players).
Even companies that use Ada are presented among them
(including Boeing and Lockheed Martin ).
This list just confirms that there is great need for such OO tool.

   I know that some people are working on creating Ada bindings to
TAO which means also bindings to ACE itself as TAO has been
built on top of the ACE.
    I think that it would be better if something like this would be done
in pure Ada. I know this is not simple.  Doug Schmidt spent many
years for all that.  But he looked into the future and his guess
was right.

  If similar communication subsystem would be a part of a standard
or semi-standard Ada environment  it could provide an excellent
platform  for many great things and make Ada more competitive
in some areas where C++ has better positions.

For instance Erlang ( http://www.erlang.org/)  from Ericsson has
much of that functionality (including HTTP server) in it's predefined
environment.
What is interesting Ericsson  is also among ACE sponsors.

It is interesting to know what others think regarding having
that functionality as part of Ada predefined environment.

Importance of communications increases every year.

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky

Re: XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Simon Wright]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1424 bytes --]

"Pascal Obry" <pascal_obry@csi.com> writes:

> Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. <rleif@rleif.com> a �crit dans l'article
> <NBBBJNOMKDIAJALCEFIJKEMIDFAA.rleif@rleif.com>...
> > In order to be absolutely explicit, I have reproduced my form below.
> > The question is: How do I get the string named test into the Ada program,
> > HTML_Ada.exe? Is it via the command line or some other means?
> 
> Well this is quite trivial, when you know :-)

Pascal, I don't think it's as trivial as you think. Bob doesn't want
to write a CGI program, he wants to include the web server in his
application!

Bob, the browser is going to connect to a TCP socket on your computer
and send you requests in the form of text. I don't have a spec for
HTTP but I'm sure one can be found ..

You will need to be able to handle sockets, you'll need (the
equivalent of the UNIX) socket(), bind(), listen(), accept(), read(),
write() and close(). You may need select() too, unless your Ada
implementation will let you block on accept() in a separate task while
you carry on with the other work.

The only tip I'd pass on from my very very limited experience is to
read() the whole request from the accept()ed socket before close()ing
it (my initial test just sent the response back using write() without
bothering to see what the reauest was).

You then have to parse the request and handle it as required; write()
back any response; and close() the socket.

XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Geoff Bull, Preben Randhol, David Botton, et al.

Firstly, I have taken the liberty of changing the name of the subject to one
that describes the content of these postings. Over the last 5 months, I have
received numerous assurances from both my friends in the Ada community and
of at least one developer of a browser that my request was quite trivial. I
have also received many suggestions. Unfortunately, none of these were
completely working examples.

I suspect that some of the problem may be because of my lack of expertise
and also the result of differences between the various browsers and
operating systems.

The original and current problem is:
To create Ada software for processing HTML including HTML forms that
will work totally on the client computer (PC). I wish to use HTML forms as
the front-end for a project. There is obvious commercial utility to do this
under Windows 98. However, for hard real-time applications any of the
following operating systems should permit my application to be the sole
executing software on the system. This application can not be interrupted
except perhaps by CTRL-Alt_Del or the reset button. I believe that this
should be possible with DOS, Windows CE, or Linux with an Ada core. My
application could work with Windows 98 providing it could monopolize (no
interrupts) a DOS Window for my instrument controller. There is no GUI
present when my program takes data.

In order to be absolutely explicit, I have reproduced my form below.
The question is: How do I get the string named test into the Ada program,
HTML_Ada.exe? Is it via the command line or some other means?

Thank you.
------------------------------------------------------------------
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html>
	<head>

		<title>
			(out2)
		</title>

		<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Latin1">

		<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
	</head>
	<body background="" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000ff"
		vlink="#800080" alink="#ff0000">
		<!--How do I get the string named test into the-->
		<!--command line of HTML_Ada?-->
		<form method="get" action="file:///C:\Ada_Work/HTML_Ada.Exe">

<textarea cols="10" rows="1" name="TEST">
hello
</textarea>
			<input type="submit" value="Submit Form">

			<input type="reset" value="Reset Form" name="Reset">
		</form>
	</body>
</html>
------------------------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Bull [mailto:geoff@research.canon.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 10:41 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE


Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:

> However, being neither competent in JAVA nor an expert on
> servers, I still do not know if this example is relevant to
> my question.

> This question was initially posed to Team-Ada.
> Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML
> that will work totally on the client computer (PC)?
> I wish to use HTML forms as the front-end for a project.

Sorry, I had lost sight of your question.

The point of the Java web server code was merely to
support David Botton's view that embedding an http server
wouldn't be "that much work", a point of view that has been
challenged.

You need understand neither Java nor servers to see
from the Java code that an embedded http server can be very
small (even though this one can't process forms).

Geoff

Re: XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[David Botton]

The reason no one has given you a working example, is no one has taken the
time to implement a small web server you can imbed in your application.
There were posts of sample C++ and Java server code, I do not have the time
to do it, but if you need this for a project, you should take the little
time (relative term) needed to reimplement one of these servers in Ada and
embed it in your code. You would then have a browser on the local machine
access the running Ada application use a URL along the lines of
http://localhost:YOURPORT  where you provide the port. It would be possible
to have the Ada application start up a browser and point the browser back to
itself using the browsers command line options.

There are a few other methods, but this is the most portable (cross OS and
cross browser) and simple. Alternatives are to using the COM binding to IE's
DHTML model (don't know why, but partly broken for Ada), write a plug-in,
use Java script to submit the form to a Ada applette, create the Ada code as
a COM object (using the COM generator from AdaPower) and then access the COM
object from JavaScript..... There are a number of other possible options,
but they just keep getting more complicated.

It would be great if some one would take this up as a small project to put
out as Open Source, but I am certain that if your project needs it there are
consultants around willing to do it for you. Take a look at the Ada Resource
Treasury (http://www.adapower.com/411) for some possible consultants and
consultant firms that may be able to assist you.

BTW the URL for the latest versions of the CGI library is at
http://www.dwheeler.com/adacgi and their is a Mail List available for it by
sending subscribe to AdaCGI-Request@AdaPower.com

David Botton


Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. <rleif@rleif.com>
> Unfortunately, none of these were
> completely working examples.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[tmoran]

>>  If similar communication subsystem would be a part of a standard
>>or semi-standard Ada environment  it could provide an excellent
>>platform  for many great things and make Ada more competitive
>>in some areas where C++ has better positions.
>You're not the only one who think along those lines.
>
>The reason that I want my own binding, is that I want something that "works
>with" Ada, not just something that Ada tolerates. I want the compiler to catch
>as many as possible of my mistakes.
  I think it would be unfortunate if a lot of effort went into
multiple, slightly different, incompatible Ada packages.  Since CLAW
works, and, having written the Sockets packages I think they are
quite usable, I naturally propose that others either use them, or at
least use their interface.  A quick glance is:

    -- Socket_Type   is a stream communication socket.
    -- It's a Controlled type so it will be automatically Closed
    -- when it goes out of scope.

    -- Async_Socket_Type (in Claw.Sockets.Non_Blocking) allows "interrupts"
    -- on Socket_Types.

    -- Datagram_Type (in Claw.Sockets.Datagrams) is a datagram communication socket.

    -- Server_Type  is a simple server accepting calls from clients,
    -- using polling or waiting for client arrival notification.

    -- Async_Server_Type  is a server with a When_Client interrupt, rather
    -- than polling or waiting, for client arrival notification.

    -- Socket_Stream_Type   is a new Root_Stream_Type for T'Read on sockets.

  procedure Open(Socket     : in out Socket_Type;
                 Domain_Name: in     String;
                 Port       : in     Port_Type;
                 Timeout    : in     Duration := 30.0);
  procedure Open(Socket  : in out Socket_Type;
                 Address : in     Network_Address_Type;
                 Port    : in     Port_Type;
                 Timeout : in     Duration := 30.0);
  procedure Close(Socket : in out Socket_Type);
  procedure Get (Socket : in out Socket_Type;
                 Item   :    out String;
                 Last   :    out Natural);
  procedure Get (Socket  : in out Socket_Type;
                 Timeout : in     Duration;
                 Item    :    out String;
                 Last    :    out Natural);
  procedure Put(Socket : in out Socket_Type;
                Phrase : in     String);
  procedure Put_Line(Socket : in out Socket_Type;
                     Phrase : in     String);
  similar IO for non-string data, records, Ada.Streams, etc.

  A Server_Type is similar but its most important routine is:

  procedure Greet(Server : in out Server_Type;
                  Socket : in out Socket_Type'Class);
        -- Wait for some client to access Server, then set Socket to
        -- an open socket connected to that client and return.
  There's also:
  type Async_Server_Type is new Server_Type with private;
  -- Server with When_Client notification of client arrival.
  -- Does not block, but the routine overiding When_Client is
  -- called on a new client's arrival.  When_Client should
  -- then do a Greet, presumably in a rendezvous with a worker
  -- task.

  function Get_Handle (Socket : in Root_Socket_Type'Class)
                return Socket_Handles;
  -- A way to get a Windows handle for a socket if you really
  -- need to pass it to some other low-level stuff.

  procedure Get_Socket_From_Handle (Socket : in out Socket_Type;
                                    Handle : in     Socket_Handles);
  -- A way to get a Claw socket from an existing Windows socket
  -- handle.

  There are of course a bunch of utility routines for finding who
you are connected to, looking up names, making or tearing apart
IP addresses, etc.
  CLAW handles the Windows messaging stuff internally.  The
standard CLAW exceptions like Not_Valid_Error, Not_Found, etc
are generated as appropriate.  There's also
  Busy : Exception;  -- raised when a second task attempts an operation
                     -- on a socket which is already in the middle of
                     -- an operation from a different task.  This
                     -- likely would result in a race condition.

  I really doubt there would be any copyright problems reusing the
spec of Claw.Sockets, since compatibility is obviously in the
interest of RR Software.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 10:37:18 +0100, Tarjei Jensen
<tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote: 

>I'm working on a Ada binding to the socket API. Progress is very slow since I
>only do this in my less than copious spare time.

Are you intending to release this under the modified GPL? If so you probably
want to build it on top of the AdaSockets (http://www-inf.enst.fr/ANC/)
binding by Sam Tardieu.

>I have discovered that is Ada vendors that supported interface.c were required
>to supply basic datatypes like size_t, time_t for the C libraries, then life
>would be easier.

I think those sort of things are more in a POSIX stylee...

- Aidan
-- 
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s/
"I could always suspend a few hundred accounts and watch what happens"

Re: XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Vladimir Olensky]

>Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:


>> This question was initially posed to Team-Ada.
>> Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML
>> that will work totally on the client computer (PC)?
>> I wish to use HTML forms as the front-end for a project.


Here is a reference though not related directly to Ada
but directly related  to the topic discussed:
http://www.scriptics.com/products/connect/
the same idea in action.

Re: XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[tmoran]

>The original and current problem is:
>To create Ada software for processing HTML including HTML forms that
>will work totally on the client computer (PC). I wish to use HTML forms as
>the front-end for a project.
  There are two different things here: HTML processing (ie, a browser),
and acting as an HTTP server.  They are two separate, communicating,
programs, running on the same or two different machines.  There may
be a third (or more) program invoked by the server to accept filled
in form entries and send back results.  That normally runs on the
same machine as the server.

>This application can not be interrupted
>except perhaps by CTRL-Alt_Del or the reset button.
  The machine running the browser cannot be reset?  Or the machine
running the server + forms-handler-program cannot be reset?  Or one
machine is running both?
  A browser that handles full HTML, ie, displaying things in the
right fonts, with images and clickable links, is a substantial
project (Note the size of Netscape or IE).  I certainly wouldn't
propose to write a browser in any small number of hours.
Perhaps with a _heavily_ restricted HTML subset.
  It would be easiest if you could use a COTS browser.  That would
likely mean it's running on a Windows version that is unprotected
from a user killing the browser, or turning off the machine.

  A server seems much easier to subset, and a useful one can indeed
be written in a few hours and a few hundred lines.  (I expect one to
join the sample programs distributed with CLAW.) Since it's a small
program that can be customized, it would be easier to have it
running under an OS where it could not be so easily killed by a
user.  Or it could run on a machine that is physically protected
from user access.

  As pointed out elsewhere, a server will normally process a GET
request that has a program name instead of a file name, by copying
the query part of the request string into an environment variable
named QUERY_STRING, and then calling the named program.  The
QUERY_STRING is a set of name-value pairs in a simple syntax.  David
Wheeler has posted a set of Ada packages that can easily be called
by such a program to fetch information from QUERY_STRING.  A POST
sends info to the server like a data file, instead of in a (limited
size) environment string.
  Since you control the html files, you know exactly what HTTP
subset your server needs to handle, and what it can handle in
non-standard ways.  For instance, your server might call a
subroutine, passing the query string, instead of using the
environment variable + separate (cgi) program approach.

  I'd be inclined to create a component for that along the lines:

package Special_Server_Package is
  use Claw.Sockets;
  type Server_Type is new Server_Type with null record;
  procedure Get_Handler(Client : in out Socket_Type;
                        Path   : in     String;
                        Query  : in     String);
  -- Called to process a GET request from Client.  The request is
  -- parsed just to separate the Path part from the Query part
  -- (if any).  The default implementation, if not overidden,
  -- is to send the file back to Client if it's a file request,
  -- or to put Query into the environment and execute the program
  -- at Path, in the normal HTTP server style.
  procedure Post_Handler(Client : in out Socket_Type;
                         Path   : in     String);
  -- Called to process a POST request from Client.  The default
  -- implementation, if not overidden, is to put the data from
  -- the client in a file, then execute the program at Path, in
  -- the normal HTTP server style.  An overiding Post_Handler
  -- should read the data directly from the Client socket.
  ...

GUI, XML,HTTP and ORBlets (Was Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)

[Vladimir Olensky]

David Botton wrote in message <81fcr1$29iq$1@news.gate.net>...

Vladimir Olensky wrote:
>>Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
>>User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
>>application.
>>I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.

>I agree very much with you. What is needed is a simple HTTP server written
>in Ada so we don't ended up married to Explorer.


>It would also be possible to set up connections between JavaScript and Ada
>using either AdaApplettes or TCP/CORBA/COM connections to Ada code
> from a Java proxy to the JavaScript.


For some reason no one has noticed and reacted to the excellent thing
mentioned here by David.

This thing has to do with CORBA.

The idea to use application embedded HTPP server to supply client  with
XML (HTML) document (which is used to create user GUI) is only initial
part of the task.
The second one is communication between  user GUI and application.
HTTP/SGI approach is not very productive and flexible in this respect.
The more advanced approach is to use  Object WEB model.

XML document uploaded to the client may contain applets that make
use of CORBA IIOP to communicate with CORBA based server
embedded into application or running separately (so called ORBLets).
 In addition soon  almost all browsers will support CORBA ORB that will
make it possible to use  JavaScript  to utilize  CORBA IIOP for
client-server objects  communications.

   Using  such  approach  GUI  (client)  side  of  the  (potentially
distributed) application  may have  direct access to application's
data and invoke application's  procedures/methods directly via
ORB regardless physical location of the client GUI.

In that model HTTP server should have only very limited
functionality which is ability to upload XML(HTML) documents
to the client when needed and nothing else.
All other things are done via ORB IIOP.
In such model this HTTP server could be  very simple.
There may be even no need of  HTTP server at all  (just
simple procedure that sends XML document (which may be
stored separately from application) to the client
using HTTP protocol). There may be even several different
GUIs (XML documents)  for the given application depending on
the authority level of the person who is trying to use that
application.

   I think that such  CORBA orientated approach   is the most
universal  and much more flexible and portable  than use of
Microsoft DCOMs.
   In addition soon we will have the ability to write Java applets
using GNAT for Java ( AppletMagic from Averstar is available
for a long time already but is  commercial product ) .
  As far as CORBA concerned there are already exist CORBA
implementations from Objective Interface entirely written in Ada
( http://www.ois.com/ ).
What's more among them exists Real-Time CORBA
(ORBExpress GT) which may be used for embedded applications.
OIS: "ORBexpress GT was designed with the embedded and
soft real-time programmer in mind".

So described above approach could be successfully used to provide
user GUIs to all kinds of  Ada applications (including embedded
applications) and provide high level of isolation between user GUI and
Ada application.

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Tarjei Jensen]

Aidan Skinner wrote:
>Are you intending to release this under the modified GPL? If so you probably
>want to build it on top of the AdaSockets (http://www-inf.enst.fr/ANC/)
>binding by Sam Tardieu.


If I manage to finish it, the license will be along what GNAT allows.

For my taste AdaSockets contains too much C flavour.

>>I have discovered that is Ada vendors that supported interface.c were
required
>>to supply basic datatypes like size_t, time_t for the C libraries, then life
>>would be easier.
>
>I think those sort of things are more in a POSIX stylee...


It may be Posix, but they are still useful for socket programming.


Greetings,

GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)

[Vladimir Olensky]

David Botton wrote in message <81fcr1$29iq$1@news.gate.net>...

Vladimir Olensky wrote:
>>Idea here is to  use JAVASCRIPT within XML documents to create
>>User Interface and exchange information between user form and Ada
>>application.
>>I think this approach is very good  as along term strategy.

>I agree very much with you. What is needed is a simple HTTP server written
>in Ada so we don't ended up married to Explorer.


>It would also be possible to set up connections between JavaScript and Ada
>using either AdaApplettes or TCP/CORBA/COM connections to Ada code from a
>Java proxy to the JavaScript.



The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application via
uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is  already
implemented in LynxOS.

In LynxOS  this is a standard approach to create user interfaces
to the (embedded) applications.

So use LynxOS and you will have off-shelf solution.

Here some quotes from Linx:

=============================================================
GUI Provider
A Web browser can provide an ideal environment for the graphical user
interface of
development tools. The GUI for these tools could be written in, say,
Java.

Embedded Systems and the Web
Web protocols are already revolutionizing the user interface to
embedded systems. In the past, in order to meet cost limits, many
embedded systems had only non-graphical user interfaces, or
manufacturers provided special client side software for PCs running
Windows or Workstations

Embedded systems can now provide powerful, user friendly graphical
user interfaces to virtually any client without any client side
software and only use a small amount of system resources

This allows the embedded system to be accessed by a Web browser.
To provide a simple graphical user interface to the system, the
developer creates an HTML page that sits as data in ROM or mass
storage on the embedded system. This HTML page could be only a few
Kbytes of data. Pictures and icons are easily added as GIF or JPEG
data. For a more powerful GUI, a Java applet can be added. The Java
applet sits on the embedded system as byte code. A few tens of Kbytes
of Java byte code can create an impressive user interface. The byte
code is actually loaded onto the client side PC or workstation for
execution and communicates to the rest of the embedded application
via a socket. No Java interpreter or run time memory is required on
the embedded system in order to provide networked graphics with this
scheme. There is a huge memory savings over running X clients on the
embedded system to provide a GUI.

Benefits of Web protocol approach
There are many benefits to the Web protocol approach to providing a
GUI for remote embedded systems. First, no client side software need
be written. The embedded system can provide a friendly user interface
to any computer over a local network and even over the Internet
itself. Very few resources are needed in the embedded system to
provide the graphical interface, especially if the system already
supports networking. Systems with local graphics can run a local
browser to provide the same look and feel for both local and remote
access. There is no shortage of programmers who know or wish to learn
how to use HTML and Java to build first rate graphical user
interfaces. Full user level interoperability to the desktop world is
provided.
---------------------------------------------------
http://www.lynx.com/products/whitepaper_galaxy.html
===================================================

Regards,
Vladimir Olensky

Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <s45hmd7dmvm38@corp.supernews.com>,
  "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application
> via uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is
> already implemented in LynxOS.

vxWorks supports this as well, I believe. (I've never had occasion to
try it out, myself).

--
T.E.D.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)

[Ed Falis]

On Mon, 29 Nov 1999 20:39:35 GMT, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> In article <s45hmd7dmvm38@corp.supernews.com>,
>   "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application
> > via uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is
> > already implemented in LynxOS.
> 
> vxWorks supports this as well, I believe. (I've never had occasion to
> try it out, myself).
> 
> --
> T.E.D.


And Phar Lap's ETS.  Also has a nice library for on-the-fly HTML generation
and forms processing. (And there's an Ada binding to these with ObjectAda).

- Ed

Re: XML-HTML Forms local execution was RE: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Alfred Hilscher]

Hello,

I think you want a http-server-part of code as the control part of your
application , right ? I've wrote such a 'demo' as a quick (very,very
quick) and dirty (very dirty) 'prototype' a few month ago. So if you are
interested, please let me know. I will send you the  (undocumented) code
- without any warrenty :-), OK ?

Regards,
Alfred

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote:
> 
> From: Bob Leif
> To: Geoff Bull, Preben Randhol, David Botton, et al.
> 
> Firstly, I have taken the liberty of changing the name of the subject to one
> that describes the content of these postings. Over the last 5 months, I have
> received numerous assurances from both my friends in the Ada community and
> of at least one developer of a browser that my request was quite trivial. I
> have also received many suggestions. Unfortunately, none of these were
> completely working examples.
> 
> I suspect that some of the problem may be because of my lack of expertise
> and also the result of differences between the various browsers and
> operating systems.
> 
> The original and current problem is:
> To create Ada software for processing HTML including HTML forms that
> will work totally on the client computer (PC). I wish to use HTML forms as
> the front-end for a project. There is obvious commercial utility to do this
> under Windows 98. However, for hard real-time applications any of the
> following operating systems should permit my application to be the sole
> executing software on the system. This application can not be interrupted
> except perhaps by CTRL-Alt_Del or the reset button. I believe that this
> should be possible with DOS, Windows CE, or Linux with an Ada core. My
> application could work with Windows 98 providing it could monopolize (no
> interrupts) a DOS Window for my instrument controller. There is no GUI
> present when my program takes data.
> 
> In order to be absolutely explicit, I have reproduced my form below.
> The question is: How do I get the string named test into the Ada program,
> HTML_Ada.exe? Is it via the command line or some other means?
> 
> Thank you.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
> <html>
>         <head>
> 
>                 <title>
>                         (out2)
>                 </title>
> 
>                 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Latin1">
> 
>                 <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
>         </head>
>         <body background="" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000ff"
>                 vlink="#800080" alink="#ff0000">
>                 <!--How do I get the string named test into the-->
>                 <!--command line of HTML_Ada?-->
>                 <form method="get" action="file:///C:\Ada_Work/HTML_Ada.Exe">
> 
> <textarea cols="10" rows="1" name="TEST">
> hello
> </textarea>
>                         <input type="submit" value="Submit Form">
> 
>                         <input type="reset" value="Reset Form" name="Reset">
>                 </form>
>         </body>
> </html>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geoff Bull [mailto:geoff@research.canon.com.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 10:41 PM
> To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> Subject: Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE
> 
> Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:
> 
> > However, being neither competent in JAVA nor an expert on
> > servers, I still do not know if this example is relevant to
> > my question.
> 
> > This question was initially posed to Team-Ada.
> > Is it feasible to create Ada software for processing HTML
> > that will work totally on the client computer (PC)?
> > I wish to use HTML forms as the front-end for a project.
> 
> Sorry, I had lost sight of your question.
> 
> The point of the Java web server code was merely to
> support David Botton's view that embedding an http server
> wouldn't be "that much work", a point of view that has been
> challenged.
> 
> You need understand neither Java nor servers to see
> from the Java code that an embedded http server can be very
> small (even though this one can't process forms).
> 
> Geoff

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Aidan Skinner]

On Mon, 29 Nov 1999 17:22:53 +0100, Tarjei Jensen
<tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote: 

>Aidan Skinner wrote:

>For my taste AdaSockets contains too much C flavour.

I guessed this, that's why I suggestted building it on top of
AdaSockets, you then don't have to do the low level stuff and can
concentrate on the public interface itself

>>>I have discovered that is Ada vendors that supported interface.c were
>required

>>I think those sort of things are more in a POSIX stylee...

>It may be Posix, but they are still useful for socket programming.

Yes, but since not all systems that Ada is implemented on is POSIX,
or, indeed, POSIX-like supplying them shouldn't be required by the
language.

- Aidan

-- 
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s/
"I could always suspend a few hundred accounts and watch what happens"

Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)

[Mario Amado Alves]

To use HTML as an user interface device you need _only_ two _perfectly
defined_ things:

1. A HTTP server (with at least CGI capability)

2. A web browser (e.g. Netscape Navigator)

(Of course, a knowledge of the associated languages and conventions is also
necessary.)

To use a remote procedure call mechanism other than CGI, which is
operating system shell based, you may in fact want to tamper with the
server, or write one, and for that a working piece of source code would be
very helpfull.

But _that_ is exactly what is necessary---the source of an HTTP server, at
least one implementing a working fragment of HTTP 1.1---_and nothing else_.
Is (or has) any of these strange things---LynxOS, vxWorks, ETS---_the_
thing, i.e. a public Ada code version of a HTTP server?

Alternatively, and since the browser makes all the work converting and
editing the forms, one might want to tamper with the browser. Is there also
a browser in Ada?

Thanks.

On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Ed Falis wrote:

>  Message from the Deja.com forum: 
>  comp.lang.ada
>  Your subscription is set to individual email delivery
> > 
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999 20:39:35 GMT, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> > In article <s45hmd7dmvm38@corp.supernews.com>,
> >   "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application
> > > via uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is
> > > already implemented in LynxOS.
> > 
> > vxWorks supports this as well, I believe. (I've never had occasion to
> > try it out, myself).
> > 
> > --
> > T.E.D.
> 
> 
> And Phar Lap's ETS.  Also has a nice library for on-the-fly HTML generation
> and forms processing. (And there's an Ada binding to these with ObjectAda).
> 
> - Ed
> 
> 
> 
>  _____________________________________________________________
>  Deja.com: Before you buy.
>  http://www.deja.com/
>  * To modify or remove your subscription, go to
>  http://www.deja.com/edit_sub.xp?group=comp.lang.ada
>  * Read this thread at
>  http://www.deja.com/thread/%3C1103_943910164%40DZOG-CHEN%3E
> 

| |,| | | |RuaFranciscoTaborda24RcD 2815-249CharnecaCaparica 351+212976751
|M|A|R|I|O|                                                  mob 939354005
|A|M|A|D|O|DepartmentoDeInformaticaFCT/UNL 2825-114 Caparica 351+212958536
|A|L|V|E|S|                                                  fax 212948541
| | | | | |                 maa@di.fct.unl.pt                FCT 212948300



 Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
 Before you buy.

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Jeffrey L Straszheim]

Tarjei Jensen wrote:

> If I manage to finish it, the license will be along what GNAT allows.
 
Don't rule out allowing some collaboration on it. I only say this
because I'd be happy to contribute to such an effort, rather than
doing my own and have us both put in that much effort for duplicate
results.

<regarding Posix types in Ada>

> It may be Posix, but they are still useful for socket programming.

Some portable way (or at least close to portable) to pull in
the C header files and pump out compatable Ada types would
be nice. It's a real nuisance to write a C wrapper function
that just munges the parameters to send them on to the actual
C library call. Any thoughts?

-- Jeffrey Straszheim          
-- Systems Engineer, Programmer
-- http://www.shadow.net/~stimuli
-- stimuli AT shadow DOT net

RE: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Mario Amado Alves et al.

In the absence of an Ada implementation of a complete HTTP server, you
should look at Amaya. It is free and available in source from the World Wide
Web Consortium www.W3.org (W3C Open Source Software). Also, you might look
at Jigsaw - The W3C's Web Server. It might be reasonable to create an Ada
binding to Amaya.  However, I have a very strong suspicion that an Ada web
server could be the killer application we need.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mario Amado Alves [mailto:maa@di.fct.unl.pt]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 3:44 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@list.deja.com
Subject: Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)


To use HTML as an user interface device you need _only_ two _perfectly
defined_ things:

1. A HTTP server (with at least CGI capability)

2. A web browser (e.g. Netscape Navigator)

(Of course, a knowledge of the associated languages and conventions is also
necessary.)

To use a remote procedure call mechanism other than CGI, which is
operating system shell based, you may in fact want to tamper with the
server, or write one, and for that a working piece of source code would be
very helpfull.

But _that_ is exactly what is necessary---the source of an HTTP server, at
least one implementing a working fragment of HTTP 1.1---_and nothing else_.
Is (or has) any of these strange things---LynxOS, vxWorks, ETS---_the_
thing, i.e. a public Ada code version of a HTTP server?

Alternatively, and since the browser makes all the work converting and
editing the forms, one might want to tamper with the browser. Is there also
a browser in Ada?

Thanks.

On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Ed Falis wrote:

>  Message from the Deja.com forum:
>  comp.lang.ada
>  Your subscription is set to individual email delivery
> >
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999 20:39:35 GMT, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>
wrote:
> > In article <s45hmd7dmvm38@corp.supernews.com>,
> >   "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application
> > > via uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is
> > > already implemented in LynxOS.
> >
> > vxWorks supports this as well, I believe. (I've never had occasion to
> > try it out, myself).
> >
> > --
> > T.E.D.
>
>
> And Phar Lap's ETS.  Also has a nice library for on-the-fly HTML
generation
> and forms processing. (And there's an Ada binding to these with
ObjectAda).
>
> - Ed
>
>
>
>  _____________________________________________________________
>  Deja.com: Before you buy.
>  http://www.deja.com/
>  * To modify or remove your subscription, go to
>  http://www.deja.com/edit_sub.xp?group=comp.lang.ada
>  * Read this thread at
>  http://www.deja.com/thread/%3C1103_943910164%40DZOG-CHEN%3E
>

| |,| | | |RuaFranciscoTaborda24RcD 2815-249CharnecaCaparica 351+212976751
|M|A|R|I|O|                                                  mob 939354005
|A|M|A|D|O|DepartmentoDeInformaticaFCT/UNL 2825-114 Caparica 351+212958536
|A|L|V|E|S|                                                  fax 212948541
| | | | | |                 maa@di.fct.unl.pt                FCT 212948300



 Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
 Before you buy.

RE: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS

[tmoran]

>So there is no "complete HTTP server". What about an "incomplete" one,
>implementing a working core of HTTP? That would be a great start.
  For a very minimal one, I'll post smplsrvr.adb, which has pretty
much the same functionality as the previously mentioned Java one.
It does use some CLAW socket calls, and not everyone has CLAW.  I'd
be happy to lobby and see if the necessary parts could be included
in the no-charge downloadable version of CLAW.

RE: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS

[Mario Amado Alves]

I know Amaya. It is not written in Ada. To my knowledge, it is in C. It is
mostly based on the Thot library for (at least) document editing. Thot is
also writen in C. The whole thing is buggy, and Thot is not being
mantained. ---Note that these observations are made from an Ada developer
point of view. I think Amaya is a nice thing. I use it for a variety of
purposes. It is better than Netscape in many ways. But the web tools in Ada
will be even better!

So there is no "complete HTTP server". What about an "incomplete" one,
implementing a working core of HTTP? That would be a great start. I can
think of at least two already existing packages to help doing this:

1. David Wheller's package CGI.
   This works fine.
   I work with a sligthly modified version package

2. AdaSockets
   (Is it Botton's?)
   I have not tried this yet. 
   My impression of the distribution contents is that it is either too
complicated or has a lot of unecessary things (which amounts to the same
thing from a reuse point of view).

2a. Simple_Com, Lower_Level
  (By a teacher in a spanish university, I think.)
  It is interesting alternate aproach to interprocess comunication.


 On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:

> From: Bob Leif
> To: Mario Amado Alves et al.
> 
> In the absence of an Ada implementation of a complete HTTP server, you
> should look at Amaya. It is free and available in source from the World Wide
> Web Consortium www.W3.org (W3C Open Source Software). Also, you might look
> at Jigsaw - The W3C's Web Server. It might be reasonable to create an Ada
> binding to Amaya.  However, I have a very strong suspicion that an Ada web
> server could be the killer application we need.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mario Amado Alves [mailto:maa@di.fct.unl.pt]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 3:44 AM
> To: comp.lang.ada@list.deja.com
> Subject: Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS ( Was:Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE)
> 
> 
> To use HTML as an user interface device you need _only_ two _perfectly
> defined_ things:
> 
> 1. A HTTP server (with at least CGI capability)
> 
> 2. A web browser (e.g. Netscape Navigator)
> 
> (Of course, a knowledge of the associated languages and conventions is also
> necessary.)
> 
> To use a remote procedure call mechanism other than CGI, which is
> operating system shell based, you may in fact want to tamper with the
> server, or write one, and for that a working piece of source code would be
> very helpfull.
> 
> But _that_ is exactly what is necessary---the source of an HTTP server, at
> least one implementing a working fragment of HTTP 1.1---_and nothing else_.
> Is (or has) any of these strange things---LynxOS, vxWorks, ETS---_the_
> thing, i.e. a public Ada code version of a HTTP server?
> 
> Alternatively, and since the browser makes all the work converting and
> editing the forms, one might want to tamper with the browser. Is there also
> a browser in Ada?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Ed Falis wrote:
> 
> >  Message from the Deja.com forum:
> >  comp.lang.ada
> >  Your subscription is set to individual email delivery
> > >
> > On Mon, 29 Nov 1999 20:39:35 GMT, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>
> wrote:
> > > In article <s45hmd7dmvm38@corp.supernews.com>,
> > >   "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > The approach for using WEB browser as user interface to an application
> > > > via uploaded HTML (XML) documents from the embedded  HTTP server is
> > > > already implemented in LynxOS.
> > >
> > > vxWorks supports this as well, I believe. (I've never had occasion to
> > > try it out, myself).
> > >
> > > --
> > > T.E.D.
> >
> >
> > And Phar Lap's ETS.  Also has a nice library for on-the-fly HTML
> generation
> > and forms processing. (And there's an Ada binding to these with
> ObjectAda).
> >
> > - Ed
> >
> >
> >
> >  _____________________________________________________________
> >  Deja.com: Before you buy.
> >  http://www.deja.com/
> >  * To modify or remove your subscription, go to
> >  http://www.deja.com/edit_sub.xp?group=comp.lang.ada
> >  * Read this thread at
> >  http://www.deja.com/thread/%3C1103_943910164%40DZOG-CHEN%3E
> >
> 
> | |,| | | |RuaFranciscoTaborda24RcD 2815-249CharnecaCaparica 351+212976751
> |M|A|R|I|O|                                                  mob 939354005
> |A|M|A|D|O|DepartmentoDeInformaticaFCT/UNL 2825-114 Caparica 351+212958536
> |A|L|V|E|S|                                                  fax 212948541
> | | | | | |                 maa@di.fct.unl.pt                FCT 212948300
> 
> 
> 
>  Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>  Before you buy.
> 

| |,| | | |RuaFranciscoTaborda24RcD 2815-249CharnecaCaparica 351+212976751
|M|A|R|I|O|                                                  mob 939354005
|A|M|A|D|O|DepartmentoDeInformaticaFCT/UNL 2825-114 Caparica 351+212958536
|A|L|V|E|S|                                                  fax 212948541
| | | | | |                 maa@di.fct.unl.pt                FCT 212948300

Re: GNAT, LINUX, KDE

[Tarjei Jensen]

Jeffrey L Straszheim wrote
>Some portable way (or at least close to portable) to pull in
>the C header files and pump out compatable Ada types would
>be nice. It's a real nuisance to write a C wrapper function
>that just munges the parameters to send them on to the actual
>C library call. Any thoughts?


It would be most useful if the C bindings contained the various data types.
Creating ones own bindings would be easier that way and way more portable in
many cases. E.g. automatic differentiating between 32 bit and 64 bit Unix,
windows NT, etc.

At one time I was planning a C program which would generate automagically a
socket binding. However I found it impractical. I suppose it would be practical
to create a C program which automagically generates definitions for various C
data types. I am not thinking about automatically generating records, but their
individual components.

Just in case anybody asks; If I do it, it will be free as in gratis and I will
do it in my own time.

Greetings,

Re: GUI, HTTP and LynxOS

[David Botton]

>2. AdaSockets
>   (Is it Botton's?)


It is the wonderful work of of Samuel Tardieu for Unix and a Win32 port was
done by Jerry van Dijk.

David Botton

Ada Network Components
http://www.infres.enst.fr/ANC/

Win32 port
http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk/packages.html#ADASOCK