Re: How to enable Ada with GCC in linux

[Brian Drummond <brian@shapes.demon.co.uk>]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 02:06:33 -0700, Ada novice wrote:

> I'm new to Linux and I have been able to run Ada programs under linux.
> On my machine, I found:
> 
> gcc -v Using built-in specs.
...
> --enable-languages=c,c++,fortran,objc,obj-c++,go --prefix=/usr
...
> version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-1)
> 
> As we can see above, Ada is not enabled in the languages available in
> GCC. Yet, my gnatmake calls gcc well.
> 
> gnatmake --version GNATMAKE GPL 2011 (20110419)
> Copyright (C) 1995-2011, Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Two different versions of gcc...

> Should I leave things as they are since I am able to compile the Ada
> programs well?

That depends...
If you are happy with GPL for everything you write at the moment, and 
Gnat GPL does what you want, then leave things as they are. (If it ain't 
broke, don't fix it!)

If you want the option of writing non-GPL code, get the FSF version of 
Gnat (with the GMGPL license, or GPL3 replagement). On debian, "apt-get 
install gnat" ought to do it.

If you have other problems (hitting obscure compiler bugs?) or want 
something not available in Gnat GPL (mixing Ada and Go code perhaps?) or 
something in FSF GCC that isn't in GPL yet) then get the FSF version.

You can have more than one gnat installed, and fiddle with paths to 
switch between them. (It can get confusing though.)

- Brian