Re: Libraries written in Ada

[Thomas Lotze <thomas@thomas-lotze.de>]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:58:59 +0100, Martin Krischik wrote:

> No, Ada packages allow for initialization code to included. Ada itself
> makes shure all initialisation code is executed - even when several
> libraries are combined. This happens automaticly when the main procedure
> is written in Ada.

Does this mean every package contains its own runtime environment, or does
every package do some initialization on a common runtime?

> When main is written in another language then the standard demands that
> "some form of initialisation" is provided. In GNAT this is done be:
> 
> void adainit (void);
> 
> You can request another name if you like or need.

This would make it possible to initialize several Ada libraries separately
in a C main program.

> The GNAT binder will generate this procedure for you and it will init all
> libraries involved.

And this seems to make it necessary, at least if I don't want to expose
the implementation details of the libraries to the extent that all used
Ada libraries have to be bound together by GNAT before they can be bound
to a C main as a whole (or do I get something completely wrong here?).

That is, if I have libraries libfoo and libbar written in Ada and
installed in binary form along with appropriate C include files, can I get
away without using GNAT if I call both adainit_foo() and adainit_bar() in
the C main? I think it's much better for library users if they don't have
to do a separate GNAT binding step but can ignore the fact that there's
Ada behind the scenes except for the initialization calls.

-- 
Viele Gr��e,
Thomas