Code completion in ada IDE's

Code completion in ada IDE's

[mchm]

I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i came 
across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and Objet Ada 
and my question is such : is there any environment wich could show code 
comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code or any info while 
writing code?? I saw Aonix plugin for the Eclipse which is very good IDE 
but i could not get t any ideas
??
Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful language 
but the ... IDE's scare me off....


Regards Mariusz

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Mariusz <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> writes:

> I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i
> came across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and
> Objet Ada and my question is such : is there any environment wich
> could show code comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code
> or any info while writing code?

I am not sure exactly what you mean by "code completion", but
"ada-mode" in Emacs can write a bit of your code for you, if you want
it to.

> Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful
> language but the ... IDE's scare me off....

Emacs is a nice programmer-friendly IDE.  If you just want an
efficient editor there's always Vi.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
A password should be like a toothbrush. Use it every day;
change it regularly; and DON'T share it with friends.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Marc A. Criley]

Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Mariusz <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> writes:
> 
> 
>>I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i
>>came across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and
>>Objet Ada and my question is such : is there any environment wich
>>could show code comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code
>>or any info while writing code?
> 
> 
> I am not sure exactly what you mean by "code completion", but

I can't answer Mariusz' question, but let me take a guess at some of 
what I think he's referring to, to help someone else understand what he 
may be looking for.

Visual Studio C++, for example, helps with "code completion" in the 
following ways:

- When you type a class variable name, as soon as you type "." or "->" 
it brings up a pop-up menu of all that class' functions and member 
variables.  You can select which one you want using the mouse or arrow 
keys.  If you just keep typing, the nearest match in that list will get 
highlighted and when the desired one is selected you can just hit return 
to insert it into your code.

- When typing a function name, as soon as you type the "(" the list of 
parameters is displayed, with the one highlighted that you're about to 
supply an argument for.  When you enter the "," the next parameter in 
the list is highlighted, and so on.  If the function name is overloaded, 
then you can click to select which one you want to invoke and then start 
providing the arguments.

This is a small, but undeniably useful feature, of the IDE which avoids 
requiring the programmer to have to refer to another file(or elsewhere 
in the same file) when making function calls.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 08:48:34 -0500, Marc A. Criley wrote:

> - When you type a class variable name, as soon as you type "." or "->" 
> it brings up a pop-up menu of all that class' functions and member 
> variables.

Right, though if you have a big project with sources on the server, that
will happen after 2-10s delay. Too short to go for another cup of coffee,
and long enough to crack your brains. So, customary I'm using Ctrl-V
pasting ".x" or "->x" with erasing "x", just to prevent Studio from
trying!... (:-))

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Adrien Plisson]

Marc A. Criley wrote:
> Visual Studio C++, for example, helps with "code completion" in the 
> following ways:
[...]

you can also type the beginning of an identifier then hit Ctrl+Space 
and Visual Studio completes the word. it saves a lot of typing when 
using loooong identifiers.

-- 
rien

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Michal Morawski]

Adrien Plisson wrote:
> Marc A. Criley wrote:
> 
>> Visual Studio C++, for example, helps with "code completion" in the 
>> following ways:
> 
> [...]
> 
> you can also type the beginning of an identifier then hit Ctrl+Space and 
> Visual Studio completes the word. it saves a lot of typing when using 
> loooong identifiers.
> 

Try the program: http://www.zsk.p.lodz.pl/~morawski/AdaIDE.zip
MM

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Alex R. Mosteo]

Adrien Plisson wrote:
> Marc A. Criley wrote:
> 
>> Visual Studio C++, for example, helps with "code completion" in the 
>> following ways:
> 
> [...]
> 
> you can also type the beginning of an identifier then hit Ctrl+Space and 
> Visual Studio completes the word. it saves a lot of typing when using 
> loooong identifiers.

GPS does this too. I think the default key binding is Ctrl-Tab.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Manuel G. R.]

Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Mariusz <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> writes:
> 
> 
>>I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i
>>came across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and
>>Objet Ada and my question is such : is there any environment wich
>>could show code comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code
>>or any info while writing code?
> 
> 
> I am not sure exactly what you mean by "code completion", but
> "ada-mode" in Emacs can write a bit of your code for you, if you want
> it to.
> 

Emacs have a word completion feature (M-/). Although is not context 
sensitive, I feel is very powerful, specially if you have loaded a tag 
file with all the public identifiers of your project. And there is no 
server delay with this kind of completion... just fast.

Additionally the ada-mode+GNAT provides identifier completion (C-TAB). 
In this case the search is confined to Ada identifiers but it is a bit 
slower.

Other nice feature is code navigation, C-c C-d over an identifier opens 
the file where it is defined, but your sources have to be up to date.

> 
>>Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful
>>language but the ... IDE's scare me off....
> 
> 
> Emacs is a nice programmer-friendly IDE.  If you just want an
> efficient editor there's always Vi.
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Jacob


-- 
Ada programming tutorial: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming
Tutorial de programaci�n en Ada: 
http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programaci%C3%B3n_en_Ada

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Michael Bode]

"Manuel G. R." <mgrojo@ya.com> writes:

> Other nice feature is code navigation, C-c C-d over an identifier
> opens the file where it is defined, but your sources have to be up to
> date.

BTW: does C-c C-r work for anyone? I get this:
ada-find-references: Invalid function: (macro . #[(identlist) "Á\bÂE‡" [identlist aref 3] 3])

-- 
Michael Bode

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Georg Bauhaus]

Michael Bode wrote:
> "Manuel G. R." <mgrojo@ya.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Other nice feature is code navigation, C-c C-d over an identifier
>>opens the file where it is defined, but your sources have to be up to
>>date.
> 
> 
> BTW: does C-c C-r work for anyone? I get this:
> ada-find-references: Invalid function: (macro . #[(identlist) "Á\bÂE‡" [identlist aref 3] 3])
> 

It worked again after loading the Lisp function ada-find-references from source,
like this:
C-h k (help key) C-c C-r gives a link to the function, then
use eval-last-sexpr (C-x C-e) with pointer after the function.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Michael Bode]

Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de> writes:

> It worked again after loading the Lisp function ada-find-references from source,
> like this:
> C-h k (help key) C-c C-r gives a link to the function, then
> use eval-last-sexpr (C-x C-e) with pointer after the function.

I'm not sure I understand, but ada-find-references C-x C-e did not
help. But I've found that I get invalid function error with the
ada-mode that comes with GNU Emacs 21.4 on Debian. 

When I replace that with adamode-3.6 from
https://libre2.adacore.com/adamode/ C-c C-r works fine. But C-c C-d
only works for predefined identifiers. That is C-c C-r with point on
Put_Line opens a-textio.ads with point on procedure Put_Line. But C-c
C-r with point on one of my own identifiers gives

No cross-reference found. It might be a predefined entity.

-- 
Michael Bode

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Georg Bauhaus]

Michael Bode wrote:
> Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de> writes:
> 
> 
>>It worked again after loading the Lisp function ada-find-references from source,
>>like this:
>>C-h k (help key) C-c C-r gives a link to the function, then
>>use eval-last-sexpr (C-x C-e) with pointer after the function.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure I understand, but ada-find-references C-x C-e did not
> help. But I've found that I get invalid function error with the
> ada-mode that comes with GNU Emacs 21.4 on Debian. 

The quickest fix seems to be to a more recent Emacs. The Ada mode of
22.0.50.1 works nicely in both cases, unless there is some installation
chaos on this machine. The ada-xref.el is marked 
;; Ada Core Technologies's version:   Revision: 1.181

With Emacs 21.4, it seems I had loaded Lisp source code for ada-find-references
from  $Revision: 1.8 $ of ada-xref.el, in /usr/share/emacs/21.4/lisp/progmodes.
However, there appears to be a more recent installation of compiled
ada-mode in a site-lisp directory. Maybe they improve each other.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Jérôme Haguet]

Michael Bode a �crit :
> Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de> writes:
> 
> 
>>It worked again after loading the Lisp function ada-find-references from source,
>>like this:
>>C-h k (help key) C-c C-r gives a link to the function, then
>>use eval-last-sexpr (C-x C-e) with pointer after the function.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure I understand, but ada-find-references C-x C-e did not
> help. But I've found that I get invalid function error with the
> ada-mode that comes with GNU Emacs 21.4 on Debian. 
> 
> When I replace that with adamode-3.6 from
> https://libre2.adacore.com/adamode/ C-c C-r works fine. But C-c C-d
> only works for predefined identifiers. That is C-c C-r with point on
> Put_Line opens a-textio.ads with point on procedure Put_Line. But C-c
> C-r with point on one of my own identifiers gives
> 
> No cross-reference found. It might be a predefined entity.
> 

Is sounds like something we faced a few time ago.
It was on Windows, but I do not remember with which version of gcc/gnat 
it occurs.
We fixed this creating a file named gnatls.bat somewhere (in one of the 
folder of PATH).
Its contents is :

@gnatls.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8

I will try to reactivate part of my memory ...

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Michael Bode]

Jï¿œrï¿œme Haguet <jeje66@despammed.com> writes:

>> When I replace that with adamode-3.6 from
>> https://libre2.adacore.com/adamode/ C-c C-r works fine. But C-c C-d
>> only works for predefined identifiers. That is C-c C-r with point
>> on Put_Line opens a-textio.ads with point on procedure
>> Put_Line. But C-c C-r with point on one of my own identifiers gives
>> No cross-reference found. It might be a predefined entity.
>>
>
> Is sounds like something we faced a few time ago.
> It was on Windows, but I do not remember with which version of
> gcc/gnat it occurs.
> We fixed this creating a file named gnatls.bat somewhere (in one of
> the folder of PATH).

Problem solved. The not working C-c C-d was due to a wrong src-path in
the Emacs project file.

-- 
Michael Bode

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Steve]

"mchm" <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> wrote in message 
news:dh9mu5$rdh$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl...
>I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i came 
>across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and Objet Ada and 
>my question is such : is there any environment wich could show code 
>comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code or any info while 
>writing code?? I saw Aonix plugin for the Eclipse which is very good IDE 
>but i could not get t any ideas
> ??
> Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful language but 
> the ... IDE's scare me off....
>

The closest thing I've seen is in AdaGIDE when there is autocompletion of 
package names from the standard libraries.  Unfortunately it doesn't do 
completion for package names you're in the process of writing.  I get the 
impression that a lot of the Ada IDE developers haven't done much 
development in other environments.

Steve
(The Duck)

>
> Regards Mariusz 

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

mchm wrote:
> I am mostly C++ and Java programmer and during mmy new project i came 
> across Ada and IDE Apex. I have also tried GPS for GNAT and Objet Ada 
> and my question is such : is there any environment wich could show code 
> comlpetion for ada sources, documentation for code or any info while 
> writing code?? I saw Aonix plugin for the Eclipse which is very good IDE 
> but i could not get t any ideas

Depending on how it's configured, Apex can do code completion (my definition of 
the term, which may be different from yours). AdaGIDE will complete library 
package names, and the names of operations in those packages, and will create a 
skeleton for named parameter association for those operations. Other IDEs will 
have different capabilities.

GNAT 3.15p has gnatstub, which creates body skeletons for packages. It also adds 
a short comment to each operation. Unfortunately, that comment simply repeats 
the operation name, violating the basic rule that comments should not repeat 
what's in the code.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Have you gone berserk? Can't you see that that man is a ni?"
Blazing Saddles
38

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[mchm]

You for the answers on the matter of Ada IDE, but the thing about this
language is that is horrible for beginners speccially when they do not
have a manual in their possesion, perhaps it would be better idea to
copy a documentation capabilities from Java?? lets say while i am
writing my packages code i can place specially inlined comments and then
i can produce for example a HTML pages for it ?? And by Code completion
i mean that when i define a variable named var : Integer, code
completion should allow me to see the attributes of such type allong
with attached help, whlile defining records tagged records i also could
have accesss to the defined fields, .... apex allows only to visit the
body or specification but it isn't enough. If Ada is designed for large
scale projects such abilities should be built in ... i suppose.

Pehaps it is good idea to propose a community Request list like in Java
that should allow users to point the needs of extensons for this language.

What do You think.

Mariusz

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Marc A. Criley]

mchm wrote:
> You for the answers on the matter of Ada IDE, but the thing about this
> language is that is horrible for beginners speccially when they do not
> have a manual in their possesion, perhaps it would be better idea to
> copy a documentation capabilities from Java?? lets say while i am
> writing my packages code i can place specially inlined comments and then
> i can produce for example a HTML pages for it ?? 

There's a very nice tool for Ada that does this called AdaBrowse.  It's 
available at http://home.tiscalinet.ch/t_wolf/tw/ada95/adabrowse.  It 
works very well and is well-maintained.

AdaBrowse processes one or more source code files and extracts 
information about the package, type, subprogram, etc. declarations, 
along with any comments that are part of those declarations, and formats 
it as a set of javadoc-like hyperlinked html files.

It's very configurable, so can adapt to your coding style (like whether 
you place associated comments above or below individual type definitions).

> Pehaps it is good idea to propose a community Request list like in Java
> that should allow users to point the needs of extensons for this language.

This does exist, although it's probably not as informal as a "community 
request list".  There's a formal way of submitting requests and 
suggestions for changes and additions to the Ada language that anyone 
can participate in, and they're taken quite seriously.  Ada 2005 is 
pretty much finalized, so nothing more will be getting into it.  The 
process doesn't stop, though, and after a rest I expect to start seeing 
suggestions picking back up.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- McKae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - XPath In Ada - XML EZ Out

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Björn Persson]

Marc A. Criley wrote:
> mchm wrote:
>> copy a documentation capabilities from Java?? lets say while i am
>> writing my packages code i can place specially inlined comments and then
>> i can produce for example a HTML pages for it ?? 
> 
> There's a very nice tool for Ada that does this called AdaBrowse.

And another called Adadoc.

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Mariusz <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> writes:

> You for the answers on the matter of Ada IDE, but the thing about this
> language is that is horrible for beginners speccially when they do not
> have a manual in their possesion,

Considering that you can download the reference manual for free (if it
doesn't come with your compiler), not having a copy of the reference
manual is a rather bad excuse.

> If Ada is designed for large scale projects such abilities should be
> built in ... i suppose.

Ada is a programming language, not an editor!

I will not deny that it may be possible to make an editor for editing
Ada source code, which is more efficient than Emacs with ada-mode, but
considering how small a part of my time actually is spent writing Ada
source code (most of the time is spent analysing the problems and
designing algorithms and data structures for solving them), I'm not
sure it would be worth the time learning to use it.

A working code completion system basically requires that the code is
compiled, so I wouldn't appreciate the task of having to implement a
real-time code completion system for Ada.

Jacob
-- 
�Saving keystrokes is the job of the text editor, not the
 programming language.�                    -- Preben Randhol

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Georg Bauhaus]

mchm wrote:

> And by Code completion
> i mean that when i define a variable named var : Integer, code
> completion should allow me to see the attributes of such type allong
> with attached help, whlile defining records tagged records i also could
> have accesss to the defined fields,

I know this is very convenient. I also know that it stops people
from learning because they get the impression they can get by without it.
The feature is useful in times, but beginners will do themselves a
disservice when they start to rely on the feature.
Try a good overview document instead, and see how this adds to your
work.

When you base your work entirely on code completion, your application
runs the risk of becoming a program that has been "competioned"
into existence, a patchwork, more or less.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Hyman Rosen]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> I also know that it stops people from learning because
> they get the impression they can get by without it.

"If we don't have it, you don't need it."

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Georg Bauhaus]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
>>I also know that it stops people from learning because
>>they get the impression they can get by without it.
> 
> 
> "If we don't have it, you don't need it."

Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with using a computer to
complete what I type. But that is different from not knowing
anything about the word that I will have to type.

identifier.+-----------------
           | bar
           | foo
           | and_so_on

is different from

identifier.f+-------------
            | foo

In the first case I'm really browsing what is available
with identifier. As the OP has explained, I don't have
a clue what identifier is about, and I expect to be "helped"
by spontaneous display of relevant interface documentation.

In the second case I have some idea, however vague, of
what to expect, given identifier.

If there is some regularity in object interfaces, then I can
either

- know the regularity because I have taken the time to
  read about it. This is the case with STL, EiffelBase, Gobo,
  Ada.Containers etc.

- continue browsing the interface via completion etc., believing
  this will remove the necessity to study the ideas behind
  the objects.

A convenience trap.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Simon Wright]

mchm <mchmiel21@tlen.pl> writes:

>                                     If Ada is designed for large
> scale projects such abilities should be built in ... i suppose.

Of course those are IDE features and not language features. Not the
less desirable if that's what you're used to.

I don't have accurate stats but I would think the proportion of time
on a large project spent actually writing new code is of order 5% ...
so completion is not as valuable a feature as accurate code
navigation.

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Martin Krischik]

mchm wrote:

> Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful language
> but the ... IDE's scare me off....

Actually GPS is pretty need. Do a right mouse click on any identifier and a
popup menu appears where you can go strait to the definition of that
identifier.

You can also visualise call trees and such which can be quite handy at
times.

GPS just doesn't have intelisense - problem is that Microsoft has a patent
on that. Not that they deserve it - there is prior art - but would you want
to go to court with M$?

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Alex R. Mosteo]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> mchm wrote:
> 
> 
>>Why Ada must be so hostile to programmers :-) It is beatiful language
>>but the ... IDE's scare me off....
> 
> 
> Actually GPS is pretty need. Do a right mouse click on any identifier and a
> popup menu appears where you can go strait to the definition of that
> identifier.
> 
> You can also visualise call trees and such which can be quite handy at
> times.

I'm a bit annoyed about this, because for it to work you need to have 
successfully compiled the file you're right-clicking.

In practice, every time you have a failed compilation for a file, you 
lost these informations until you recompile successfully again. At 
least, remembering the last known state would be an improvement in 
usability.

> GPS just doesn't have intelisense - problem is that Microsoft has a patent
> on that. Not that they deserve it - there is prior art - but would you want
> to go to court with M$?

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Simon Wright]

"Alex R. Mosteo" <devnull@mailinator.com> writes:

> I'm a bit annoyed about this, because for it to work you need to
> have successfully compiled the file you're right-clicking.
>
> In practice, every time you have a failed compilation for a file,
> you lost these informations until you recompile successfully
> again. At least, remembering the last known state would be an
> improvement in usability.

If you compile with -gnatqQ, the .ali files will be retained even if
the compilation fails (I forget the exact meanings of q and Q ..)

Certainly under Glide (the supported emacs ada-mode) these switches
let you navigate to find out why the compilation failed (well, almost
all of the time, anyway!)

Re: Code completion in ada IDE's

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Simon Wright wrote:

> If you compile with -gnatqQ, the .ali files will be retained even if
> the compilation fails (I forget the exact meanings of q and Q ..)

Since I just had this information trying to remember how to display the version:

   -gnatq    Don't quit, try semantics, even if parse errors
   -gnatQ    Don't quit, write ali/tree file even if compile errors

-- 
Jeff Carter
"There's no messiah here. There's a mess all right, but no messiah."
Monty Python's Life of Brian
84