Re: Application Size in Ada

[chris <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com>]

Simon Lewis wrote:
> How is dynamic linking achieved in Ada?

It's not.  It's the compiler that deals with this and it depends on the 
compiler.  Assuming you're using GNAT, it has instructions on how to use 
compiler to produce libraries in the user guide.  I'm having some 
difficulty with this on Linux but am in the process of sorting it out.

> Are the Ada specific DLL's or can a DLL be used by any language as long 
> as you have the right 'bindings' (You will have to excuse my ignorance, 
> i am not very familiar with linking in Ada).

You can import DLLs written in many other compilers/languages fairly 
easily, providing they don't require any special runtime be setup prior 
to accessing them.  Going the other way, say from GNAT to C (gcc) is a 
little more difficult because you have to initialise the Ada runtime and 
the C won't necessarily understand the Ada types.  You have to provide a 
mapping between the Ada and C types using something like the package 
Interfaces.C as part of the library or a separate library wrapped around 
the Ada one.

The GNAT User Guide details this as well as how to create/use dlls.  Not 
sure exactly what section in the manual it is on Windows, but for Linux 
it's section 16 (gnat 3.15p).


Chris