Re: Bug in Ada (SuSe 10.2) ?

[billjones6789@yahoo.com]

On Feb 20, 4:55 pm, tmo...@acm.org wrote:
>    Technically it's an Ada compiler if and only if it passes the
> validation tests, and the default Gnat therefore isn't an Ada compiler,
> and shouldn't be advertised as one.  If it its bugs were sufficiently
> obscure they are not detected by the validation tests, then it would be an
> Ada compiler.

This was true prior to 30 November 1987, when the US DoD held a
registered trademark on the name Ada, and allowed use of the
trademark
only with validated compilers.  But the Ada trademark was allowed to
lapse, so there has not been any such restriction for over 20 years.

There is no mention in the Ada RM of "passing the validation tests".
Instead, it says (RM 95 1.1.5 paragraph 11) "An implementation may
provide nonstandard modes of operation. ... In any case, an
implementation
shall support a standard mode that conforms to the requirements of
this
International Standard; in particular, in the standard mode, all legal
compilation_units shall be accepted."

There is no mention in the Ada RM of "default compiler switches",
just "standard mode" and optionally "nonstandard modes".  So as long
as -gnato is considered part of "standard mode", there not any
technical problem calling it an Ada compiler (assuming of course that
"all legal compilation_units are accepted").