[Emacs-ada-mode] Thanks and my first enquiry Fecha: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 22:26:52 +0200

[Stephen Leake]

Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen at adalog.fr> writes:

>> The GNAT ASIS tools don't support specifying source directories using
>> a GNAT project file. But they don't support reading Emacs project
>> files, either (that I know of).
>> 
> Well, I meant *my* ASIS tools (i.e. adasubst, adadep, adacontrol and 
> gcs). Parsing a .adp file to generate the correct -I option is very 
> easy; but I don't feel like parsing a .gpr file.

Ok, that makes sense.

Do you have a separate Ada package that parses the *.adp? I could add
that to Auto_Text_IO; that would be useful.

>> So I don't understand how this relates to Emacs Ada-mode dropping
>> *.adp in favor of *.gpr (not that we've decided to do that yet).
>>
> I don't mind supporting also .gpr files, but by all means,
> please do not drop .adp!

One way to support both is to have a functioning 'project_converter'
(the gpr to adp tool once provided by AdaCore).

On the other hand, if we had that, we would have a package that nicely
parses *.gpr, and you could use that package in your ASIS tools. Or
'project_converter' directly.

The problem with project_converter *.gpr files is that it is
compiler version dependent (apparently). Since AdaCore doesn't provide
it anymore, we'd have to maintain versions for each version of gnat.

If we are using the gpr parser part of project_converter with ASIS
tools, we might be able to convince AdaCore to include at least that
part in gnat releases.

You mentioned that AdaCore had no intention of changing their ASIS
tools to support gnat project files, until someone with deep pockets
came along. But exporting a supported interface to *.gpr files should
be simple (if we can agree on what that interface should look like :).
I'm currently paying for ASIS support thru work; I think I'll ask for
that for an ASIS tool I use at work, and see what happens.

-- 
-- Stephe