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From: emery@linus.mitre.org (David Emery)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: File name conventions for Ada units
Message-ID: <EMERY.90Oct1105615@aries.linus.mitre.org>
Date: 1 Oct 90 14:56:15 GMT
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In-reply-to: danr@SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM's message of 29 Sep 90 22:04:48 GMT
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

The following come from the DEC Ada compiler:
>
>	package spec:	package_.ada
>	package body:	package.ada
>	subunit:	package__subunit.ada
Without a doubt, this is the UGLIEST, WORST naming convention I can
imagine.  I don't know who/why DEC thought this up, but s/he should be
shot, hung, drawn and quartered (and not necessarily in that
order...)!  There are several things that make it offensive:
	1.  the spec name is modified (with the trailing underscore),
while the body name remains "pure".
	2.  the syntax for the spec and subunit is not an Ada identifier
	3.  it's just ugly.
	4.  the body preceeds the spec in "lexical sorting order"

The major requirements I like to place on naming conventions is that
	1.  the spec filename matches (as much as the O.S. permits) the
name of the Ada unit.
	2.  the filename of the body should lexically follow the spec, so
I can do the following:
	ada my_package*
and the spec gets compiled first, and then the body (via expansion of
the wildcard).  

On Unix I use:
		unit_name.a
		unit_name.body.a
on MS-DOS I use:
		abbrname.ada
		abbrname.adb
(sometimes you have to get creative to come up with useful filenames
within the limitations of DOS...)

Incidently, I agree with Mike Feldman about the inconvience of compilers that
force a specific naming convention, such as Verdix.  I've submitted a
bug report to this effect to Verdix after every major release...

				dave emery
				emery@aries.mitre.org