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From: haughton1228@my-deja.com
Subject: linking Ada and Visual C++
Date: 2000/03/24
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Date: 2000-03-24T00:00:00+00:00
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Any insight that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

First some background.  We currently have an application implemented on
a DEC Alpha Unix platform, developed utilizing Rational Apex as our Ada
IDE and UIMX as our C-based X-Windows GUI generator.  We currently have
thin bindings between the Ada main programs and the C GUIs. We rename
the C main to c_main and call it at instantiation of the Ada executable
to bring up the initial display. Logic to support the displays is
written either in C or Ada, with the necessary externs and
imports/exports to make this all work.

I am trying to understand how to set up a similar environment in the NT
world.  We would like to use Microsoft Visual C++ and MFC to re-create
the GUI (~100 non-trivial displays), adapt supporting C/C++ code from
X-Windows to Windows, and port the Ada code to the NT platform with as
little change as possible. Theoretically, with the right bindings and
compiler/linker options, I should be able to compile the C++ gui and Ada
code and link the resulting objects together into a single Ada
executable. I have been prototyping using GNU Ada.  The Win32Ada
bindings there only implement the Win32 APIs, not MFC, so I'm thinking
that this would force me to use the lower level Win32 APIs to interact
with all of the MFC graphical objects created by VC++. The documentation
gives enough info to make me believe that this is possible, but I
haven't succeeded in making it work.

I've seen the updates for gnat v3.13 which implrove the C++ interface,
but I haven't found any additional info as to whether this additional
functionality or just improved documentation.

Another option would be to use AFC bindings provided as part of Aonix
ObjectAda to write an Ada MFC-based application from scratch (like the
Prosise examples), but can I use AFC to create an Ada executable with a
MFC front end created using the Visual C++ GUI builder? I have been
looking in comp.lang.ada, as well as www.gnat.com, www.aonix.com, and
www.adapower.com and microsoft sites, and haven't found this specific
question answered.  Are there any other resources (web, print, etc.)
that you could recommend? Would a 'native' Ada gui builder (such as the
one available from Aonix) be a better solution?

TIA,
Jim Haughton


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