GNAT Ada 95 compilers
Information is available on Gnat -- a free Ada 95 compiler which implements the entire language and has been ported to many different platforms (including the Mac). It is based on the GCC multi-langauge compiler system.
Aonix Object Ada compiler
Aonix provides free fully operational ObjectAda programming environments for Windows and UNIX (Solaris). In addition to the programming environments, a number of associated tools are provided in demo form.
Ada + SQL compiler
Ada+SQL is a programming environment for Ada 95 extended with basic SQL single user capabilities. It incorporates a very fast compiler and interpreter, with debugging options, library generator and browser, syntax template editors, programmer wizard, two-dimensional graphics, SQL interactive interface and hypertext documentation on the environment, Ada 95 and SQL. Arthur Vargas Lopes, the author of Ada+SQL, presented a paper on this system at the SIGAda '99 meeting.
GW ez2load Ada Compiler and Tutorial Kit for MS-DOS
Prof. Michael B. Feldman of GWU announced the first release of ez2load [mirror] [European mirror] an easy-install kit of free Ada 83 and Ada 95 compilers and editors, and a shareware tutorial for Ada 95.
This kit is intended primarily for distribution on the forthcoming new release of the Walnut Creek Ada CD-ROM, but it is equally useful as an ftp or diskette distribution. THe various components are all available separately from their usual ftp sites, but we think putting them all together in one easy-install package with be of great help to users, especially new ones.
Included in the ez2load kit are:
- a menu-driven installer program
- GW-Ada/Ed, an integrated Ada 83 environment that provides an excellent way to get started with Ada. This system incorporates an editor, compiler and virtual-code interpreter, and a very useful multi-window runtime monitor. Several directories of interesting example programs are provided, including some nice programs to demonstrate Ada's multitasking capabilities. Based on NYU's Ada/Ed compiler, GW-Ada/Ed was developed by Charles Kann, GW doctoral student, and Arthur Vargas Lopes, a GW graduate now of Porto Alegre, Brazil.
- GNAT (GNU/NYU Ada Translator) for DOS, an Ada 95 compiler that runs under djgpp (GCC for DOS) and provides a nearly-complete implementation of Ada 95. (Tasking is not yet supported in the DOS version of GNAT.) A basic djgpp distribution is included in the kit and installed along with GNAT. GNAT is a product of a team at New York University and elsewhere.
- GW-GNAT, an editor with the same look-and-feel as that of GW-Ada/Ed.
- AdaCAPS (Ada Computer-Aided Programming System), an interactive development environment for GNAT. The editor provides full support for multiple re-sizable windows (overlaid or tiled), mouse and keystroke interactions, and single-keystroke invocation of GNAT compilation, binding, and execution commands. Ken Price of Priceless Software, Perpperell, Mass, is the author of this very nice IDE.
- a set of simple DOS command-line commands, gcompile/glink/gexecute, which allow new GNAT users to do simple compilation and linking operations, and to execute programs in an environment that produces a neatly-formatted traceback in case of an unhandled exception. These commands are invoked by GW-GNAT and AdaCAPS but can also be run from the DOS command line. Charles Kann is the author.
- a fast hypertext Ada 95 Reference Manual. The hypertext RM can be invoked from GW-GNAT and AdaCAPS or used as a stand-alone program. The author is Arthur Vargas Lopes.
- Ada-Tutor - a shareware package by John Herro, providing computer-aided instruction in Ada 95. This is an excellent package for those wishing to teach themselves Ada 95.
The complete distribution occupies about 8.5 megabytes; the unpacked and installed GNAT distribution requires about 15 megabytes, and the full installation needs about 20 mb. You need an MS-DOS computer with an 80386 or better CPU; 4 megabytes minimum RAM, 8 mb preferred.
On September 30, 1998, the Ada Resource Association (ARA) accepted responsibility tocontinue the activities of the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO), as part of transitioning Ada support from government to private industry. The ARA is promoting Ada in a variety of areas. One primary responsibility is the continuation of the Ada compiler validation process. More information on this transition and the activities of the Ada Working Group (JTC1/SC22/WG9) within the International Organization for Standards (ISO) to standardize the existing validation processes may be found in the flyer Ada 95
ValidationConformity Assessment.More information on Conformance Testing & Evaluation is available.
Find a conforming compiler for your processor
Ada Compiler Evaluation System (ACES) 2.1
ACES provides performance tests, test management software, and analysis software for assessing the performance characteristics of Ada compilation and execution systems. Version 2.1 of the Ada Compiler Evaluation System (ACES) is now available via WWW.
Ada Rapporteur Groups
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are the two primary organizations for international standardization. For some years, both ISO and IEC made standards that related to computing. In 1987, they resolved the problem of overlapping scope by forming a Joint Technical Committee, JTC1, to deal with all standardization in the scope of information technology. JTC1 deals with its large scope of work by subdividing the responsibility among a number of Subcommittees. SC22 is the subcommittee that deals with programming languages and environments. SC22 subdivides its scope of work among several Working Groups. WG9 is the one given responsibility for the Ada programming language. WG9 typically meets twice a year for a single day. Most of the work in drafting documents is prepared in Rapporteur Groups. Typically, an RG is assigned responsibility for one or more projects. Current rapporteur groups include:
- Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG) - Language interpretations of Ada 95 comments and issues.
- Annex H Rapporteur Group (HRG) - Guidance for Safety/Security applications in Ada.
- ASIS Rapporteur Group (ASIS RG) - Drafting a secondary standard for ASIS (Ada Semantic Interface Specification). Works closely with the ACM SIGAda ASIS Working Group.
- Interface Rapporteur Group (IRG) - Forming. It is expected to perform work leading to standardized interfaces between Ada programs, C++, Java, and ODBC.
Polyspace by MathWorks.Com
Polyspace uses a formal methods based static code analysis to verify programs written in the Ada 83 or Ada 95 language. This product was developed with research conducted after the Ariane 5 disaster where a runtime error in the GNC system (written in Ada) caused the rocket to veer off course. (More information about this is in the Polyspace Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyspace).
AdaSTAT by DCS
AdaSTAT is a static analysis tool that dramatically reduces the time and resources required to scan Ada95 code for violations of project-specific language restrictions, and calculate both object-oriented and functional metrics.
GRASP: A free comprehensive graphical based development environment for Ada
The GRASP (Graphical Representations of Algorithms, Structures and Processes) Project has successfully created and prototyped a new algorithmic level graphical representation for software: the Control Structure Diagram (CSD). The primary impetus for creation of the CSD was to improve the comprehension efficiency of Ada source code and, as a result, improve software reliability and reduce software costs. Since its creation, the CSD has been expanded and adapted to include other languages.
GRASP provides the capability to generate CSD's from Ada 95, C, C++, Java and VHDL source code in both a reverse and forward engineering mode with a level of flexibility suited suitable for professional application. GRASP has been integrated with the GNU family of compilers for Ada (GNAT) and C (gcc), and Sun's javac compiler for Java. This has resulted in a comprehensive graphical based development environment for these languages. The user may view, edit, print, and compile source code as CSD's with no discernible addition to storage or computational overhead.
AdaGide: A free integrated development environment
AdaGIDE is the Ada GNAT Integrated Development Environment for Windows 95/NT. It consists of an editor that interfaces to the GNAT Ada compilers. AdaGIDE was implemented entirely in Ada 95 using the win32ada binding.
CodeBuilder: Ada for the Mac
CodeBuilder from Tenon Intersystems is a Power Macintosh application that includes a complete suite of C, C++, Objective-C, Java, Ada, and Fortran development tools. CodeBuilder can be used in combination with standard Macintosh editors and compilers to develop Macintosh applications, X applications, and UNIX applications.
AdaCAPS [mirror] - New Program Development Environment for GNAT under MS-DOS
Prof. Michael B. Feldman of GWU announced the first release of AdaCAPS (Ada Computer- Aided Programming System), an interactive development environment (IDE) that works with GNAT (GNU-NYU Ada 95 Translator) under MS-DOS.
AdaCAPS includes:
- a newly-developed editor, programmed with Borland Turbo Vision and using components of the Borland Editor Toolbox. The editor provides full support for multiple re-sizable windows (overlaid or tiled), mouse and keystroke interactions, and single-keystroke invocation of GNAT compilation, binding, and execution commands.
AdaCAPS was developed by Ken Price of Priceless Software, Pepperell, Massachusets. Binaries are freely distributable; we regret that Borland's license for Turbo Vision prohibits us from distributing source code.
- a set of simple DOS command-line commands, gcompile/glink/gexecute, which allow new GNAT users to do simple compilation and linking operations, and to execute programs in an environment that produces a neatly-formatted traceback in case of an unhandled exception.
These commands are invoked by AdaCAPS but can also be run outside of AdaCAPS from the DOS command line.
We are doing some tricks here and running GDB (GNU debugger) indirectly. We are providing these commands to help new Ada users and students; advanced users will probably want to turn off the traceback and use GDB directly.
The DOS commands were developed by Charles Kann, a doctoral student at The George Washington University. He has developed similar simple commands for GNAT under Unix; write us if you are interested in these.
- a fast hypertext Ada 95 Reference Manual, produced by Arthur Vargas Lopes, Ulrich Peters, Jerry Dressler, and Rafael Presotto of Porto Alegre Brazil. The help system can be invoked from AdaCAPS or used as a stand-alone program. We are freely distributing binaries with the permission of Dr. Lopes.
Design Tool for Modeling Software and Managing Requirements
In September 2003, Excel Software began shipping a major upgrade of WinA&D with advanced capabilities for modeling and generating Ada code. WinA&D is a comprehensive software engineering tool for structured analysis and design, OOA/OOD with UML, multi-task design, data modeling, requirements management, code generation for popular programming languages and a built-in scriptable reporting engine.
Ada is a programming language used primarily on mission critical defense projects. Working closely with a large defense contractor, Excel Software has mapped a streamlined UML notation to the Ada programming language. When Ada is selected in WinA&D 3.5, tailored UML class models allow the designer to easily represent Ada packages and various types of relationships like aggregation (parent/child and parent/nested packages), generalization (generic instantiation) and dependency (Withed packages).
The UML modeling experience has been tailored to fit the conventions, standards and practices used by Ada developers. For example, dialogs with drop-down pick lists make it easy to create records, arrays and other data types, share data types between packages and construct subprogram arguments with minimal typing. Visual relationships between classes (Ada packages) in the UML model determine the code structure. The scope of package components like types, variables, constants and subprograms are visually represented on the UML class model and automatically transferred to the Ada implementation during code generation.
WinA&D runs verification checks to ensure model consistency, completeness and design integrity prior to code generation. Ada code generated from the model is an exact implementation of the design including full package specifications and body files, subprogram files with arguments, data types and stubbed implementations. Ada's With dependencies between files are also included in the generated code. The code is linked directly to the design, enabling the developer to click on the class model and view the code in the integrated code browser.
For non-Ada developers, WinA&D 3.5 adds new features including a data types dialog, a synchronized contents view for diagram organization and navigation, new diagram presentation options, enhancements for listing diagrams and associated dictionary information between projects and new reengineering features.
WinA&D runs on Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 or XP. It is available in four Single User License editions; Standard, Desktop, Educational, and Developer; or by 5-User and Unlimited User Site License. Contact Excel Software by phone or visit www.excelsoftware.com for product information and online ordering.
Excel Software
Ph: (505) 771-3719
Fax: (505) 771-3718
Web: http://www.excelsoftware.com
Email: info@excelsoftware.com
Ada Code to HTML files
David A. Wheeler created Ada2html. Ada2html takes as input a set of Ada source files and generates (as output) a set of HTML (hypertext) files. Ada2html generates hypertext links between compilation units. Ada2html requires Unix, perl, and gnatf (part of GNAT) to run; you do not need any of these things to view the results.
Ada 95 Parser and Lexical Analyser
An Ada '95 parser and lexical analyzer was developed by a team of students at Monmouth University using Aflex and Ayacc.
OO CASE Tool with Ada script and OMT files
The windows O-O CASE tool With Class has just been upgraded to version 3.1. The tool and includes reverse engineering; class/state/object diagrams; source code generation for C++, Delphi, Pascal, Eiffel, Ada, Smalltalk, Poet, SQL, Foxpro and others. It suports all major O-O notations and has a script language for custom reports and code generation (over 60 scripts).
Windows Editor now Supports Ada
Neville Franks, wrote that the Soft As It Gets P/L has released the latest version of it's full featured Universal Integrated Development Environment, ED for Windows.
This release includes support for both Ada and VHDL bringing to a total of 31 programming languages now supported.
The UIDE includes extensible color syntax highlighting, smart language sensitive editing, full integration of compilers including jumping to the location of compiler errors, code skeletons & templates to write code for you, file difference analysis, function, class & method browsers, right click API help file lookup and much more.
Further information along with a free trial version is available from our Web site.
We welcome and look forward to feedback from the Ada development community.