
After some weeks of impatiant waiting you get now a new version of the
famous great Ada compiler GNAT.

Here comes version 1.79 of the Gnu Ada compiler for Linux 
as of Mai 15th (1.79). I have uploaded gnat-1.79-l1.tar.gz into the
incoming directories of SunSite, tsx-11, and Nic. From SunSite you can
get it right now. Expect some days until the maintainers move it to the
following directories:

sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/development/ada/gnat-1.79.l1.tar.gz
nic.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux/util/languages/gnat-1.79.l1.tar.gz
tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/packages/Ada/gnat-1.79.l1.tar.gz

read the file 'features' for what has changed. There now is
preliminary support for tasks (aka threads). GNAT tasks are based on
the pthreads package which already has been ported to Linux. I haven't
tried it yet, but I dont see any reason why it shouldn't work. Please
mail me any experience, if you try it.
 

The GNAT project will implement the full Ada9X language which has full
support of Object Oriented Programming (using a slightly different
approach than C++, see the paper intro-9x.txt), has already working
Generics (aka templates), exception handling, and a full tasking support
within the language itself.


I have tested the compiler on the examples and of course on
itself. The executable that you find in this distribution has compiled
itself. 



This distribution contains the following files:

./usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.5.8/gnat1
./usr/bin/gnatbind	; the binder
./usr/bin/gnatbl	; a more comfortable binder (read gnat-intro)
./usr/bin/gnatchop	; split comp units into different files
./usr/bin/gkrunch	; krunch long filenames and spit out a short one
./usr/bin/gnatf		; cross referencer
./usr/adainclude	; files of the runtime library
./usr/src/gnat/*	; all the other stuff

The executables have been compiled with gcc-2.5.8 (C) and gnat-1.79
(Ada). They are dynamically linked with libc-4.5.19. Any recent kernel
should do.

You find some documentation about using GNAT and Ada9x in
./usr/src/gnat/doc

Since version 2.5.0, Ada support already is included in the main
distribution of GCC. So we don't need a special driver program anymore
(/usr/bin/gcc). This means that you must have installed a version of GCC
2.5.X. 


Perhaps it is a good idea to get the latest Ada9X reference manual from:

ajpo.sei.cmu.edu:/public/ada9x/rm9x/v4.4

It might look a bit thick, but there are a lot of instructive examples
and you better understand the list of supported and unsupported features
of the current release.


EXAMPLES are in 

./usr/src/gnat/examples

BUGS

There are quite a few, read the file Kown.bugs. If you have problems
using gnat please tell me (ebert@enpc.fr) first.

If you have general questions concerning Ada, please read comp.lang.ada
and the useful FAQ. A lot of Ada information can be found at

  wuarchive.wustl.edu:/languages/ada

and for Mosaic users:

  http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/


