Re: GNATBench : how can I install ?

["Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>]

Le Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:08:53 +0100, Britt Snodgrass  
<britt.snodgrass@gmail.com> a écrit:

> Forget Hibachi, its a (effectively) dead project.

Some already told me the same here, but I could not get an idea without a  
try. Hibachi is not so bad, it is lightweight and simple, which can be  
good. And I don't like to say “dead” for such a thing which was not  
created on that purpose (some care for the authors too). This was still a  
good and not-tiny job.

> GNATbench has some minimal dependence on the CDT to support mixed
> language programming and debugging, I think.
I've noticed CDT only has the debugging configuration pan (Hibachi had  
one). I did not test debugging (learned to do without).

It handles file-name refactoring not so well as CDT does. Indeed, it does  
not handle this at all, and I get crashes when I did some test, like  
renaming an Ada file, an Ada project name, a GPR file, etc. It tries to  
rebuild a data-base, then crash and makes all Eclipse crash with it (it  
does not crash alone, I don't like that). So beware of file renaming.

> I have installed
> GNATbench many times. Assuming you have GNATbench 2.4.0, I would first
> get the Eclipse 3.5.2 SDK from www.eclipse.org and then use the built-
> in "Help->Install New Software..." to find and install the compatible
> version of the CDT (e.g. CDT 6.0.2). Then install GNATbench 2.4.0.
> Versions of  GNATbench up through 2.4.0 will default (with prompt) to
> installing themselves into the GNAT bin directory and then putting a
> gnatbench.link file in a "links" subdirectory in the Eclipse
> directory Restart Eclipse after installation.
I may add I've checked it works fine with MinGW, but still requires a  
minimal GPS in the path… to open the GPR file dialog box.

> Version 2.5.0 of
> GNATbench (when released) will have a more standard "local update
> site" installation mechanism.
Seems they may have reach this target while they may not tell it : there  
is even no need to use the installer, I've played a bit to see how it  
works. All you have to do (at least in Windows), is to unpack the  
installer or the archive, move the “plugins” and “features” folders in  
your eclipse directory (nothing else at all), then launch Eclipse. It will  
automatically detect any GCC/gnatc. A minimal GPS is not strictly  
required, but if there is none, you will have to edit GPR files manually.  
I've noticed it has automatically created a big gnatbench.dll in a  
subdirectory of OSGI (which is in “.configuration”).

All that means it is near to be possible to install it straight-away (it  
just needs to get ride of the minimal external GPS it relies on, to be OK).

What is this “gnatbench.link” ? Mine is working without. I tried the  
installation from place to place to see if this was still standalone… and  
it is.

Compared to Hibachi, I could not strictly say one is better than the  
other, this would be like comparing AdaGIDE and GPS (no way to compare,  
the spirit and target are not the same). Both  have their weakness (CDT on  
the other hand is very good… now he know a possible reason why so much  
people are sticked to C/C++/Java… the environment is very neat-good in  
this area, and all seamless).

Also, both come with source, if ever some-one would wish to get involved.


-- 
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