Re: [Q] Tools for Ada Quality and Style [LONG]

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Bob Duff said

": Last time I checked, the ACT coding standard wasn't documented very well
: -- you have to guess what it is by looking at existing code, and dealing
: with error messages from the style checker."

The ACT coding syle is split into two parts:

1. THings that are enforced by the undocumented switch -gnatg. This switch
is much more than a style switch, and in particular it makes the copiler
operate in a mode that is not consistent with the Ada 95 reference manual.
It is definitely for internal use only, and people using it will get a 
shock in some future release when additional restrictions are added without
warning! These requirements are documented *internally* in style.adb. hey
are quite deliberately NOT documented externally.

2. More general style points that are not enforced (except by Dewar reading
every line of code that is checked in and correcting it if necessary :-)
In practice such corrections are less and less frequent, because at this

point people udnerstand the conventions. They are partially written up in
an internal document, and could be further documented, although there is
always the last epsilon where the style rules ultimately say "lay things
out in an elegant style", where it is hard to pin down the last details.

It would be nice to have full documentation of the GNAT style. This is on
the list of things to do.

It would be nice to have separate options for enforcing various style
rules. This is on the list of things to do.