ASIS information requested

ASIS information requested

[Majoaggro]

Does anyone know anything about ASIS for Gnat further than the information
furnished with the ASIS package( 2.0 M ).

The example code gives a brief idea of how it might all work, but as a less
technically endowed ada programmer i find i need more.

as the ASIS is for a university final year project to build an object browser
and associated utilities. is there a commercial package available as an
educational license which might contain more documentation and more implemented
features?

sorry if this is an ignorant question, but can asis retrieve the information
necessary to identify objects,ie types and their related procedures?

Re: ASIS information requested

[Robert Dewar]

<<The example code gives a brief idea of how it might all work, but as a less
technically endowed ada programmer i find i need more.

as the ASIS is for a university final year project to build an object browser
and associated utilities. is there a commercial package available as an
educational license which might contain more documentation and more implemented
features?

sorry if this is an ignorant question, but can asis retrieve the information
necessary to identify objects,ie types and their related procedures?>>

ASIS-for-GNAT implements the ASIS interface as described in the ISO DIS.
You need to get a copy of this document. Yes, of course ASIS cqan
retrieve the informatoin you mention, and a lot more besidfes!

Re: ASIS information requested

[Robert Dewar]

iiMajoaggro asks

<<as the ASIS is for a university final year project to build an object browser
and associated utilities. is there a commercial package available as an
educational license which might contain more documentation and more implemented
features?>>

ASIS is fully supported by Ada Core Technologies, and you can get the latest
version along with full commercial support, send email to sales@gnat.com
for full details. The latest version implements almost all of the ISO DIS,
and is already being used to generate some useful new tools for GNAT.

As with all ACT technology, this new version of ASIS will be released
publicly some time in the future.

Re: ASIS information requested

[Majoaggro]

thanks for the reply.
i have had many helpful e mails from several of the authors of ASIS and can now
appreciate the utility of ASIS, which seems to be able to recover just about
any information if it is stored by the compiler in the first place!
it also appears that the problem may not be finding the information, it may be
using it. objects appear to be notional things in ada, and working out what an
programmer intended from the procedures and types found looks like the
challenge. the problem may be like integration, where the process can never
recover all the information of the original undifferentiated state? 9 my maths
is not that good, this may be a terrible example!).

Re: ASIS information requested

[Steve O'Neill]

Majoaggro wrote:
> 
> thanks for the reply.
> i have had many helpful e mails from several of the authors of ASIS and can now
> appreciate the utility of ASIS, which seems to be able to recover just about
> any information if it is stored by the compiler in the first place!
> it also appears that the problem may not be finding the information, it may be
> using it. objects appear to be notional things in ada, and working out what an
> programmer intended from the procedures and types found looks like the
> challenge. the problem may be like integration, where the process can never
> recover all the information of the original undifferentiated state? 9 my maths
> is not that good, this may be a terrible example!).

I'm also very interested in using ASIS.  Primarily to extract
information from existing code so that I can do rehost/redesign.

Could you point me at any of the sources of information that you may
have found?

TIA,
Steve O'Neill

Re: ASIS information requested

[Bill Marksteiner]

Please post info on group, as I (and probably others) am interested, too.
Thanks.

Steve O'Neill wrote in message <34856996.6081@lmco.com>...
>I'm also very interested in using ASIS.  Primarily to extract
>information from existing code so that I can do rehost/redesign.
>
>Could you point me at any of the sources of information that you may
>have found?
>
>TIA,
>Steve O'Neill

Re: ASIS information requested

[Majoaggro]

ASIS would be very useful for that kind of stuff , as far as i can tell.
There is quite a lot of information on the web, this is a good place to start.


http://info.acm.org/sigada/wg/asiswg/



fyi, here is the email and reply i got from clyde roby, a very helpful
gentleman who  coordinate the
ASIS information group.


Sender: roby@ida.org


> i am a student at university of portsmouth , and i am trying to use asis in
> a final year project to build a set of object oriented tools, such as an
> object browser.
> I found the examples supplied very helpful, but find myself stuck without
> any real idea of how to apply asis to my problem. 

I've copied your message to the ASIS-Technical email discussion group
so that others may also help you.

> could you tell me if i will need an in depth understanding of compilers to
> continue making headway?
> if so, could you suggest any useful documentation?

In my opinion, just the basics.  Of course, the more information
you'd like to obtain, the more helpful and more in-depth your
understanding of compilers and how they work would be helpful.

> is there any place where some example code can be found? or perhaps some
> more information?

We will be updating the ASIS web site with more examples very soon.
Hopefully, these should be of help to you.  Our hope is to have the
examples that were shown at Tri-Ada'97 in St. Louis (9-13 November)
on the web site before the Christmas holiday break -- even earlier
if possible.

> does asis support the semantic information necessary to identify objects in
> ada?

Definitely to identify type information.

> thankyou for your time, i hope it isnot inappropriate to contact you about
> this.

You're very welcome.  This was indeed an appropriate contact.
Others on this list will, most likely, add more information.

Clyde Roby
ASISWG/ASISRG Recorder and Webmaster

PS: I'll add you to the ASIS-Technical email discussion list so that
    you will be part of that discussion as well.


hope this helps - mj