Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[v...@gmail.com]

Hello Everybody,

I need to develop a navigation tool on an iPad, based on GPS localisation and speed measurement. There won't be any cartography involved but visualy it will be something similar to the compass app. It is a small development, so I cannot afford expensive tool support. To do that, I would love to use Ada :

- Is it possible to have an Ada compiler for iOS ? I have read somewhere that GNAT had been ported to ARM. Even AdaCore is proposing a free bare board ARM cross compiler. But to use GNAT on iOS is still challenging. Is it possible to build a simple library, just for computing GPS data ? Is it possible to have tasking (I need at least to tasks : on for user interaction and the other for computation) ?

- Is it possible to use GNOGA for drawing instruments, like a compass, on an iPad screen ?

Or do I have to resign to do my development in Swift....

Kind regards,

Vincent

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

On Saturday, 19 December 2015 11:05:00 UTC, v...@gmail.com  wrote:
> Hello Everybody,
> 
> I need to develop a navigation tool on an iPad, based on GPS localisation and speed measurement. There won't be any cartography involved but visualy it will be something similar to the compass app. It is a small development, so I cannot afford expensive tool support. To do that, I would love to use Ada :

Yup, would be nice.

> - Is it possible to have an Ada compiler for iOS ? I have read somewhere that GNAT had been ported to ARM. Even AdaCore is proposing a free bare board ARM cross compiler. But to use GNAT on iOS is still challenging. Is it possible to build a simple library, just for computing GPS data ? Is it possible to have tasking (I need at least to tasks : on for user interaction and the other for computation) ?

GCC has an ARM backend, GNAT sits on GCC, so it can be compiled for that backend. I plan to try to compile GCC for iOS, but haven't got around to it as I don't really know the proper command line options required, yet. The intention is to add it to my free-ada build scripts, with the first build be a cross compiler on my Linux box using NFS to mount the Mac's FS so I could access the files in the SDK there.

This is the first step, the next step is producing bindings to the various frameworks Apple has and making sure it's all legal, i.e. Apple doesn't get in the way.

iOS is based on the Mach kernel, same as OS X, it's a form of BSD unix, so having tasks should be trivial and afaik, it is supported. People here build GNAT for OS X.
 
Luke.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

On Saturday, 19 December 2015 13:39:45 UTC, Lucretia  wrote:

> iOS is based on the Mach kernel, same as OS X, it's a form of BSD unix, so having tasks should be trivial and afaik, it is supported. People here build GNAT for OS X.

The other problem is that Apple have stopped using GCC and now use Clang/LLVM.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[David Botton]

> I need to develop a navigation tool on an iPad

It will have to be an app with a server side, but using Gnoga it is possible.


> - Is it possible to have an Ada compiler for iOS?

Not currently realistic. The best we can hope for when it comes to GCC/GNAT is someone redoing the work Marcus did and releasing as GMGPL the runtime for .NET then you can use the many tools to convert .NET to either real iOS code or to ASM.js

If that ever happens I'll update Gnoga to work client side as well for ASM.js / .NET (A simple thing)

There is little point in trying to go direct to iOS with GCC/GNAT


> - Is it possible to use GNOGA for drawing instruments, like a compass, on an iPad screen ?

Yes

What you do is create an application using PhoneGAP using a Gnoga boot.html pointing back to your Gnoga app's server IP/URL. Then you can use HTML5 Canvas or any other HTML/JS method to do the drawing. The PhoneGAP JS API will give you access to the location data, etc. which you can access from the server side using Gnoga.

David Botton

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

On Sunday, 20 December 2015 02:16:24 UTC, David Botton  wrote:

> > I need to develop a navigation tool on an iPad
> It will have to be an app with a server side, but using Gnoga it is possible.
> 
> > - Is it possible to have an Ada compiler for iOS?
> Not currently realistic. The best we can hope for when it comes to GCC/GNAT is someone redoing the work Marcus did and releasing as GMGPL the runtime for .NET then you can use the many tools to convert .NET to either real iOS code or to ASM.js
> 
> If that ever happens I'll update Gnoga to work client side as well for ASM.js / .NET (A simple thing)

What are you talking about?

AFAIK, GCC  is capable of building for iOS as Apple originally used GCC for iOS development before Clang.  So, in a word, yes, it is possible to have GCC and GNAT target iOS. We just need a few things:

1) the incantation to build the thing
2) generators to build bindings into ObjC/Swift - Swift uses the ObjC runtime, the ObjC runtime is based on C so should be easy to bind to.

It is realistic because Apple did the work, it's doable. You can use the FSF as a base, just whether Apple provided the necessary patches back to FSF or not, if not, you have to find them.

Luke.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[David Botton]

> AFAIK, GCC  is capable of building for iOS as Apple originally used GCC for iOS development before Clang.  

Yes and you will need to use an older version of XCode to make this work and I'm not sure even possible. As far as I can tell there is no way to use gcc anymore for iOS development only LLVM.

David Botton

Who is promotion and advertising

[pratikg482629]

Is it very interested where promotion and advertising? Re0jj

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[vincent.diemunsch]

Le dimanche 20 décembre 2015 03:16:24 UTC+1, David Botton a écrit :
> 
> It will have to be an app with a server side, but using Gnoga it is possible.
 
> What you do is create an application using PhoneGAP using a Gnoga boot.html pointing back to your Gnoga app's server IP/URL. Then you can use HTML5 Canvas or any other HTML/JS method to do the drawing. The PhoneGAP JS API will give you access to the location data, etc. which you can access from the server side using Gnoga.

Thanks David and Luke for your kind responses. Sadly, the server side solution is not practical here, for an onboard navigation tool. I realy need a compiler for iOS...

Kind regards,

Vincent

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Georg Bauhaus]

<vincent.diemunsch@gmail.com> wrote:
> Le dimanche 20 décembre 2015 03:16:24 UTC+1, David Botton a écrit :
>> 
>> It will have to be an app with a server side, but using Gnoga it is possible.
>  
>> What you do is create an application using PhoneGAP using a Gnoga
>> boot.html pointing back to your Gnoga app's server IP/URL. Then you can
>> use HTML5 Canvas or any other HTML/JS method to do the drawing. The
>> PhoneGAP JS API will give you access to the location data, etc. which
>> you can access from the server side using Gnoga.
> 
> Thanks David and Luke for your kind responses. Sadly, the server side
> solution is not practical here, for an onboard navigation tool. I realy
> need a compiler for iOS...

The AdaMagic Compiler will output C; there also is an Ada binding for some
of Cocoa.
Ask AdaCore.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[David Botton]

There is an OpenSource AdaMagic compiler to C? That would be something worth building on and would solve a lot of community issues.

David Botton

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

On Monday, 21 December 2015 10:05:55 UTC, vincent....@gmail.com  wrote:
> Le dimanche 20 décembre 2015 03:16:24 UTC+1, David Botton a écrit :
> > 
> > It will have to be an app with a server side, but using Gnoga it is possible.
>  
> > What you do is create an application using PhoneGAP using a Gnoga boot.html pointing back to your Gnoga app's server IP/URL. Then you can use HTML5 Canvas or any other HTML/JS method to do the drawing. The PhoneGAP JS API will give you access to the location data, etc. which you can access from the server side using Gnoga.
> 
> Thanks David and Luke for your kind responses. Sadly, the server side solution is not practical here, for an onboard navigation tool. I realy need a compiler for iOS...

I did try a cross compile of gcc 4.9.2 for macos x which didn't work. Idid build binutils for ios, so it could/should be possible. I think if you try to build it on macos x instead, it may work, it may not.

Try:

../binutils-2.25/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --target=i686-apple-darwin10 --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin10- --with-build-sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/  --disable-nls --disable-shared


../gcc-4.9.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --target=i686-apple-darwin10 --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin10- --with-build-sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/ --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++ --disable-nls --disable-shared 

You will probably need the following additions for gcc as well, so each lib would need to be build as well, see my free-ada scripts for that:

--with-ppl=<install> --disable-isl-version-check --disable-ppl-version-check --with-gmp=<install> --with-mpfr=<install> --with-mpc=<install> --with-isl=<install> --enable-cloog-backend=isl --disable-cloog-version-check --with-cloog=<install>

Luke.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

Ok, I hit the same problem I had building a cross compiler on Linux for macosx (I have the mac fs mounted using nfs, btw). I downloaded the prebuilt gcc-4.9.1 for yosemite that was posted recently and installed that in my PATH.

<command history>
mkdir gcc build-binutils build-gcc build-gmp build-mpfr build-mpc build-isl build-cloog

cd build-gmp
../gmp-5.1.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-shared --enable-cxx
make -j4
make check
make install

cd ../build-mpfr/
../mpfr-3.1.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-shared --with-gmp=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc
make -j4
make check
make install

cd ../build-mpc/
../mpc-1.0.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-shared --with-gmp=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-mpfr=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc
make -j4
make check
make install

cd ../build-isl/
../isl-0.12.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-shared --with-gmp-prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc
make -j4
make install
make check

cd ../build-cloog
../cloog-0.18.1/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-shared --with-gmp-prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-isl-prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-bits=gmp
make -j4
make check
make install

cd ../build-binutils/
../binutils-2.25/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --target=i686-apple-darwin10 --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin10- --with-build-sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/  --disable-nls --disable-shared
make -j4
make install

export PATH=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc/bin:$PATH

cd ../build-gcc/
../gcc-4.9.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --target=i686-apple-darwin10 --build=x86_64-apple-darwin14 --host=x86_64-apple-darwin14 --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin10- --with-build-sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/ --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++ --disable-nls --disable-shared --disable-multilib --with-gcc --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-ppl=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --disable-isl-version-check --disable-ppl-version-check --with-gmp=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-mpfr=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-mpc=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc --with-isl=$HOME/opt/apple-gcc
make -j4
</command history>

<error log>
Checking multilib configuration for libgcc...
mkdir i686-apple-darwin10
mkdir i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc
Configuring in i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc
configure: creating cache ./config.cache
checking build system type... x86_64-apple-darwin14
checking host system type... i686-apple-darwin10
checking for --enable-version-specific-runtime-libs... no
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking for gawk... awk
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-ar... /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ar
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-lipo... i686-apple-darwin10-lipo
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-nm... /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/nm
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-ranlib... /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ranlib
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-strip... /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/strip
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking for i686-apple-darwin10-gcc... /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include --sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/  
checking for suffix of object files... configure: error: in `/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc':
configure: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile
See `config.log' for more details.
make[1]: *** [configure-target-libgcc] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2
</error log>

The config.log doesn't really show much:

<config.log>
configure:3373: $? = 1
configure:3362: /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-
gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include --sysroot=/Developer
/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/   -qversion >&5
xgcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-qversion'
xgcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:3373: $? = 1
configure:3389: /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-
gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include --sysroot=/Developer
/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/   -o conftest -g -O2   conftest.c  >&5
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: invalid listing option `r'
configure:3392: $? = 1
configure:3580: checking for suffix of object files
configure:3602: /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-
gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include --sysroot=/Developer
/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/   -c -g -O2  conftest.c >&5
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: invalid listing option `r'
configure:3606: $? = 1
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h */
| #define PACKAGE_NAME "GNU C Runtime Library"
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME "libgcc"
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION "1.0"
| #define PACKAGE_STRING "GNU C Runtime Library 1.0"
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT ""
| #define PACKAGE_URL "http://www.gnu.org/software/libgcc/"
| /* end confdefs.h.  */
| 
| int
| main ()
| {
| 
|   ;
|   return 0;
| }
configure:3620: error: in `/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc':
configure:3623: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile
See `config.log' for more details.
</config.log>

The above build was for building for the iPhoneSimulator.

I've no idea how to get past this.

Luke.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

All the sources are unpatched, i.e. straight from their respective sources.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Luke A. Guest]

Another problem is that Apple has gone LLVM only now so if you were also
wanting to  interface with swift 2 it might be tricky. It is C based though
as it sits atop the objc runtime afaik.

Luke

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Luke A. Guest]

Lucretia <laguest9000@googlemail.com> wrote:

> configure:3620: error: in `/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc':
> configure:3623: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile
> See `config.log' for more details.
> </config.log>
> 
> The above build was for building for the iPhoneSimulator.
> 
> I've no idea how to get past this.

This might be a regression after 4.9.1, so I will try that version tonight.

Re: Ada on iOS ? Or Swift...

[Lucretia]

I had a thought, don't use binutils as the iphone sdk's have their own tools.

../gcc-4.9.2/configure --prefix=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc --target=i686-apple-darwin10 --build=x86_64-apple-darwin14 --host=x86_64-apple-darwin14 --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin10- --with--sysroot=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/ --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++,ada --disable-nls --disable-shared --disable-multilib --with-ppl=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc --disable-isl-version-check --disable-ppl-version-check --with-gmp=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc --with-mpfr=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc --with-mpc=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc --with-isl=/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc

Still failed at the same point, but a different error this time.

<start>
configure:3373: $? = 1
configure:3389: /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include    -o conftest -g -O2   conftest.c  >&5
/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/as: line 106: exec: i386: not found
configure:3392: $? = 1
configure:3580: checking for suffix of object files
configure:3602: /Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/xgcc -B/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/bin/ -B/Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/lib/ -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/include -isystem /Users/laguest/opt/apple-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/sys-include    -c -g -O2  conftest.c >&5
/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/./gcc/as: line 106: exec: i386: not found
configure:3606: $? = 1
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h */
| #define PACKAGE_NAME "GNU C Runtime Library"
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME "libgcc"
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION "1.0"
| #define PACKAGE_STRING "GNU C Runtime Library 1.0"
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT ""
| #define PACKAGE_URL "http://www.gnu.org/software/libgcc/"
| /* end confdefs.h.  */
| 
| int
| main ()
| {
| 
|   ;
|   return 0;
| }
configure:3620: error: in `/Users/laguest/src/gcc/build-gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/libgcc':
configure:3623: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile
See `config.log' for more details.
</end>

The previous error (using binutils) was related to the assembly not being recognised.

Anyone?

Luke.