From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
	autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,f890526de6a8a218
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.megapath.net!news.megapath.net.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:23:02 -0500
From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
References: <BJj3f.711$QM5.65@tornado.socal.rr.com>
 <22jsk1pnk6664cr4so2nig7ssi2u0d6bv7@4ax.com>
 <434e4a25_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net> <Uc6dnd1_6YKzZNPeRVn-vw@megapath.net>
 <434f643e$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>
Subject: Re: How to detect OS type and version?
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:27:00 -0500
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4952.2800
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4952.2800
Message-ID: <Td-dnezkj9VKoM3eRVn-uA@megapath.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.32.209.38
X-Trace: 
 sv3-dLNos1oIBsPkHBqM34oxcQwx/p0zU9gFRPJIEWHjQoVNLxmMpKolg4i9zcqmXspG+rxOiXpaa2v2OaP!y6MoMO2Yu0EHzr/g8i2fhoNz5/9Mbs5z8aeB5AW4ubyVaX3tckz7PZ2HfejNx9Ypq5ADKNJ860Sg
X-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net
X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint
 properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.32
Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5668
Date: 2005-10-14T18:27:00-05:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

"Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@baesystems.com> wrote in message
news:434f643e$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
...
> Quick question for you Randy - was the original intent that "System.Name"
> provide this?

I think so. But it's an enumeration type, and adding values everytime a new
version of an OS becomes available is annoying, so there never was much
support for this.

Ada 83 compounded the problem by implying that users could simply use a
pragma System_Name to change the target. The net effect was that nobody
provided more than one target in the type System.Name.

For Janus/Ada, we used to provide a number of literals, but somewhere along
the line that got dropped, perhaps for the reason above. The name of the
literal is a bit helpful ("Win32" or "Unix"), but hardly portable in any
way.

                      Randy.