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From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: "new" word
Date: 16 Mar 2005 05:36:27 -0600
Organization: LJK Software
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In article <1110966980.482176.111570@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, "fabio de francesco" <fmdf@tiscali.it> writes:
> Ciao,
> 
> While reading "the big online book of Linux Ada programming", by Ken O.
> Burtch, I stopped at the following assertion
> (http://www.pegasoft.ca/resources/boblap/13.html):
> 
> "Usually you allocate memory with the Ada new statement. Where does new
> get its memory? It uses the standard C library's malloc function."
> 
> Does really Ada use Libc to implement "new"? Is it true?

Of course not.  Ada is a language standard, and allocates memory out of
thin air.  That memory has no physical reality and costs nothing. It is
unlimited in size.

Some particular Ada _implementation_ however, has to deal with physical
memory.  It is possible that some implementation might be layered on top
of the C memory allocation facilities.

> It seems absurd to me. I don't understand why Ada should depend on a C
> standard library. 

Some operating systems are very C-centric in their operating system calls,
and without direct experience I would say that Linux is likely one of them.
I have seen "portable" C programs which spend half of their lines of code
rolling their own version of facilities that are built into other operating
systems.