Re: ADA compilers/ difference between 83 and 95 - The answer

[Jeff C <jcreem@yahoo.com>]

Chris Albertson wrote:
> Sorry aout the last message hadno text. Here is is again
> 
> 
> I'm curious, will ada83 programs not compile under ada95?
> 

Some programs or packages from Ada 83 will indeed not compile but again 
it is generally no more of a problem than switching compiler vendors.

See this link:

http://www.adaic.org/learn/tech/8395comp.html

Summary. Along with my experience

a) A few new reserved words. (Never ran into this one)
b) New form required for indefinitite generic parameters (I hit this once)
c) Packages can not  have a body if their spec does not require it (I 
hit this once. It was always a bad idea by the way_
d) Character now has 256 items instead of 128 (never hurt by this one)
e) Numeric_Error no longer unique. Now renames of constraint error 
(Never hurt by this one)

That is all the site listed. I believe I ran into an additional problem 
with an attribute that was renamed/removed on floats ('small?) which is 
not listed on that link.

Other issues you will run into (that will happen regardless of the Ada 
83 v.s. Ada 95 thing)

1) Use of vendor supplied packagages - Can be a big deal.
2) Use of vendor specific attributes or pragmas  - can be a moderate deal
3) Different level of support for rep-specs - can be a big deal
4) Different approach for supporting package Machine_Code insertions
5) Code that relies on buggy behavior of the old compiler