Re: Runtime startup code for the GNAT Runtime...and a bit of humble pie.

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Diogenes" <phathax0r@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:f9e48953-18e9-4645-aae2-3caa4ad2a302@googlegroups.com...
>Anyone know if there's a list of what parts of the Ada language can be 
>compiled statically
>without any Runtime whatsoever?

That's obviously compiler-specific (and probably specific to particular 
compiler versions as well). You need to specify a compiler and version to 
have any hope of a useful answer. (Certainly the answer is wildly different 
for Janus/Ada vs. GNAT vs. ObjectAda.)

I really wouldn't expect such a list to exist. We don't have one for 
Janus/Ada, for instance; it's certainly the case that there are many things 
that require minimal runtime support but we've never had any reason to 
figure it out.

Janus/Ada always assumes a small runtime. Since we provide the complete 
source code to the runtime in the professional packages, and the code 
includes a number of minimal support switches, you could make a version that 
requires nothing but memory setup and some form of "put_line" without too 
much trouble. (We used to sell embedded versions for bare 16-bit processors, 
but that business didn't translate to 32-bit processors.) I suspect that the 
situation is similar for GNAT.

As far as correctness goes, that's what the ACATS is for. (Figuring out how 
to run it on a bare machine might be interesting, however.) It won't prove 
that absolutely everything works, but you'll get a fair certainty that you 
didn't make any major mistakes.

                                Randy.