ASISWG Documents and Artifacts

ASIS Specification Documents and Software

ASIS, Version 2.0

• An introduction to the ASIS interface

• ASIS Basic Concepts -- The ASIS Basic Concepts discusses the Ada environment, the ASIS notion of the Ada compilation environment, ASIS Queries, Structural Queries, Semantic Queries, and General ASIS query processing.

• ASIS Architecture -- The ASIS architecture identifies the architecture of the ASIS interface which includes types, subtypes, procedure, and function calls. ASIS is organized in child packages. A tool or application using ASIS has visibility to the entire declarative region of package ASIS including all child packages.

• ASIS Notional Application -- ASIS applications may take on many forms. This example presents a notional ASIS application using a restrictions checker. This restrictions checker is intended to visit every element in an ASIS context to determine if a violation of a safety-critical check has been made.

• Traverse Compilation Unit Example -- This example demonstrates the use of ASIS to traverse a compilation unit. The example prints the name of all explicit declarations along with its kind. This example is provided ready to compile. It contains a sample test program called asis_test and the result of executing the ASIS Application Example.

• Call Tree Example -- This example demonstrates the use of ASIS to print call tree information for each compilation unit in the context. This example is provided ready to compile. It contains a sample set of compilation units for the context and the output resulting from processing by the ASIS Call Tree Example.

• Glossary -- A Glossary of ASIS terms.

• Rationale -- A rationale for ASIS-based code analysis.

Links to Other Useful ASIS Tutorial Resources

There is a wealth of other useful ASIS tutorial information available. Such information includes vendor tutorials at conferences, conference presentations, vendor tutorials on web sites, and even publically available ASIS applications with source code. These sites provide a different perspective that is valuable to one learning ASIS. These include:

• Building Ada Development Tools with ASIS-for-GNAT (PDF file, 916 KBytes), by Sergey Rybin and Vasiliy Fofanov, is an excellent tutorial that was presented at SIGAda 2000.

• A Static Analysis Tool for High-Integrity Systems (PDF file; 176 KBytes) provides an analysis of how ASIS can be used to statically detect certain Ada 95 language features that have been deemed to be potentially unsafe in certain safety-critial applications. Although the paper was intended to outline the development work that led to the AdaSTAT tool, it is an excellent demonstration of how to apply ASIS queries for many specific purposes. As such, it goes a long way towards introducing new users to the practical application of the ASIS interface.

• SofTools Home Page. Follow the link to Using ASIS. This site provides a mini tutorial on the use of ASIS and provides an example of building a flowgraph for a subprogram using ASIS.

• Slide sets from the Software Technology Conference (STC'99) might be useful from an ASIS 95 tutorial perspective. This slide set introduces the concept of a template for executing ASIS applications. This template will be available shortly. An announcement to the ASISWG/ASISRG will be made when the template is available.

• Publically available ASIS Applications with source code!

• How to do things in ASIS -- or Answers to ASIS email questions form the SIGAda-ASIS-Tech (ASIS Technical) mailing list.

• ASIS 83 Tutorials are also available.

ASIS Secondary Library

Thanks to Sergey Rybin, Dan Cooper, and Steve Blake for the information below related to secondary libraries.

Sergey Rybin defines an ASIS secondary library as a library defining ASIS secondary queries. ASIS secondary queries are simplly some typical combinations of the standard ASIS queries which are of a particular interest or which are often used in a particular ASIS tool. The idea is to encapsulate these combinations of standard ASIS queries in a form similar to the standard ASIS queries and then to use these secondary queries similar to high-level ASIS queries in the code of that tool.

For example, in ASIS, you have the Corresponding_Name_Definition query defined for simple names only. But in your tool, you may need to know what is the meaning of a given simple or expanded name. And you may define your own "query" applicable to An_Identifier and A_Selected_Component elements. This query then will analyze its argument and, depending on the argument kind, it uses this or that method for defining the "meaning" of the argument.

Defining a tool-specific ASIS secondary library is a part of the first step of an ASIS tool design and implementation.

Steve Blake also adds that the use of secondary layer queries greatly simplifies development using ASIS. Most tools have common needs such as outputting an expression or declaration name in fully qualified form. Steve found that most tools can use a relatively small pool of common secondary queries and then define several specific secondary operations for their own special purpose. So, it is not such a daunting task as it might first seem. Steve has a sample of secondary libraries that he used when he was at Aonix; most of these queries should work with GNAT ASIS, too.

C. Dan Cooper says that Steve's observations match his own experience, too. But just to underscore what Sergey said: the significant insight is that, unlike Steve's and my experiences, which were largely ad-hoc, you should deliberately plan an up-front effort to design the high-level queries you expect to need in your application. The importance of this step stems not from the difficulty, but rather from the benefits. These include:

• lack of (or reduced?) frustration with ASIS
• highly focused queries that are not ad-hoc
• can write the application with "elegant" code
• opportunities for reuse

25-26 March 1997 -- Phoenix, AZ

Minutes of the ASISWG/ASISRG meeting of 25-26 March 1997 are now available in text form. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form.

3 December 1996 -- Philadelphia, PA

Minutes of the ASISWG/ASISRG meeting of 3 December 1996 are now available in text form and in PostScript form. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form and in PostScript form.

10 June 1996 -- Montreux, Switzerland

Minutes of the ASISWG/ASISRG meeting of 10 June 1996 are now available in text form, in PostScript form, and as a Microsoft Word document. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form, in PostScript form, and as a Microsoft Word document,

11-12 March 1996 -- Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Minutes of the ASISWG meeting of 11-12 March 1996 are now available in text form, as a Microsoft Word document, and in PostScript form.

2-3 November 1995 -- San Diego, CA

Minutes of the ASISWG meeting of 2-3 November 1995 are now available in text form and in PostScript form. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form and in PostScript form.

4 October 1995 -- ASIS Workshop at Ada Europe'95

The planned ASIS Workshop at the Ada in Europe 95 conference (held 2-6 October), actually took place on Wednesday, October 4. Minutes of the ASIS Workshop are now available.

26-27 June 1996 -- McLean, VA

Minutes of the ASISWG meeting of 26-27 June 1995 are now available in text form. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form and in PostScript form.

6-8 March 1995 -- Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Minutes of the ASISWG meeting of 6-8 March 1995 are now available in text form and in PostScript form. Highlights of this meeting are also available in text form and in PostScript form.