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From: Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 08:10:29 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2016-08-28T08:10:29+00:00
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On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, Jeffrey R. Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote:
>> On 08/24/2016 10:40 AM, Qun-Ying wrote:
>>> 
>>> GNAT has support for OpenVMS:
>>> http://www.adacore.com/press/gnat-pro-now-available-for-hp-openvms-on-hp-integrity-servers/
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Not sure if FSF GNAT could be cross compiled into VAX OpenVMS.
>>
>> DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
>> is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.
>>
>
> That doesn't mean all the required bits have shown up in the FSF version
> of the GCC codebase (don't forget AdaCore maintain their own codebase).

I think Mr. Carter probably knows the history pretty well ;-)

But I don't think Adacore has much interest in non-Windows or non-Linux
platforms in the native target space. They got rid of their Solaris builds
over the years. Still, I remember a rumor that there is something going on
for the VMS Intel port at Adacore and it makes sense. It should not be that
difficult to port the Linux version to VMS _if_ a current gcc toolchain is
available. If VMS goes all the way with Clang/LLVM and doesn't get an up to
date gcc going it will be a lot harder.

> I was able to use the cross compiler to build some C programs which ran
> on VMS, but Fortran code fell over at runtime either during the image
> activation process or very shortly afterwards (I can't remember which).

If you post the results maybe I could help, or some of the guys in
c.l.f. would help. I'm a little surprised anyway. I though the front-end was
completely Ada and the back end was C/C++. I did not know there was any
Fortran involved in gnat.

> Both the C++ and Ada frontends failed to build when building the
> cross compiler (GNAT fell over with an ICE during the build and C++ was
> some header problem IIRC).

I suspect a current gcc on VMS is going to be essential. Much code that uses
gcc exploits every last gccism and does so increasingly all the time.

Bob