Re: Ada compiler differences

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <WSWcd.8$V_2.4@dfw-service2.ext.ray.com>, Mark H Johnson <mark_h_johnson@raytheon.com> writes:
> Magnus wrote:

>> Or rather: how can I write code that really is platform (and compiler)
>> independent in Ada?
>> 
> To do that fully would require an extensive list of issues and is often 
> constrained by the types of platforms you expect to run on. For a simple 
> example, network order (for TCP/IP) is "big endian". If you are on a 
> little endian machine, several values need to go through htonl, htons, 
> and similar functions to be converted. If you "know" you will always on 
> a big endian machine (same as network order), you might get away without 
> them, but that isn't portable.
> 
> That particular issue has nothing to do with Ada; you have the same 
> problem with C or other languages.

In particular, it has to do with the fact that TCP/IP was devised on
an ad-hoc basis rather than using an underlying marshalling technique
such as promoted by ASN.1.