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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Linux/POSIX packages for GNAT
Date: 1998/02/23
Message-ID: <dewar.888252813@merv>#1/1
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References: <34EEFF9C.1D01FA5D@stellar1.com> <1998Feb21.194544.1@eisner>
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Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-02-23T00:00:00+00:00
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Markus said

<<I am at the moment a quite experienced and happy programmer using
a complete ISO C / POSIX.1 conforming development environment (Linux).
I am seriously considering to switch to Ada95, but I will not consider
Ada to be an attractive development language under Linux as long
as I do not know how to get the same rich library/kernel functionality
that I do currently have as a C programmer. The standard packages
>>

That's fair enough. There are three possible solutions to your problems:

1. Use pragma Import to call whatever C functions you know and find useful.

2. Use the existing standardized binding to the the Posix functionality

3. Use some other binding that provides this functionality.

Of these, at the present time, 1. is the easiest and the most portable. 
Furthermore, if you already are an experienced user of the Posix interface,
I think you will find this the easiest approach. The standardized binding
is not a completely thin binding, and will require some learning curve,
whereas using approach 1 will require zero learning curve.

<<Sure, I understand that I can always access any
  libc function via Ada95 interface pragmas, but it obviously would
  be much more convenient to have a native production quality Ada
  API such as POSIX.5 available.>>
  
That's the point, this is not at all obvious to me that this is the case,
especially give someone who is familiar with the existing C interface. Indeed
I would have thought it was clearly the case that it is more convenient to
use pragma Import than a thickish binding. An aggressively thin binding might
be more convenient (basically it would save you the trouble of writing the
pragma Imports), but that is not what the standard provides.

I wonder, have you actually studied the Ada standard in coming to your
conclusions about convenience?