Containers on small systems (Was: GNAT GPL is not shareware)

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:

> "Simon Wright" <simon@pushface.org> wrote in message 
> news:lylhkkcdec.fsf@pushface.org...
> ...
>> I can't at the moment include Ada.Containers.* in my STM32F4 RTS,
>> because I don't support memory allocation,
>
> The bounded containers shouldn't require any allocation; there is 
> Implementation Advice to avoid that.
>
> If there is an issue, it's probably with finalization. The containers
> themselves aren't supposed to use finalization, but its likely that
> the iterators and references do.
>
>> and AdaCore don't include any
>> Containers in their Ravenscar RTSs for the same board, and I only have
>> 192K of RAM to play with! but if I did, I'd use the FSF version.
>
> A bounded container is only as big as you need it to be. (Well, unless
> the compiler is doing something unfriendly.) Not having bounded
> containers is pretty much like not having arrays, IMHO.

Of course this is just GNAT, but the amount of support software required
to support their Containers (called in by finalization, exception
propagation, dispatching, streams ...) is large. I see AARM A.18.19(6.a)
indicates that Iterator and Reference types could be left out in
restricted environments (so no "for A of B loop ..."?), which would
eliminate the need for finalization and dispatching .. maybe something
can be done.

What does C++ typically provide for small boards? The full STL? a
subset?

[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/12aarm/html/AA-A-18-19.html#p6.a