Using 'Image with Alire

Using 'Image with Alire

[Seth Workman]

I have only started learning about Ada recently and have discovered the 'Image attribute that can be used on all types starting in ada 2022.

I am using Alire and added the following to include the `-gnat2022` switch.
```
      for Default_Switches ("Ada") use Learning_Config.Ada_Compiler_Switches & ("-gnat2022");
```

 The Alire documentation warns about switches ~"In general, this should be avoided to preserve consistency in the ecosystem"

Is this the correct way about adding this switch or is there a way to use a toolchain that already has it by default?

Re: Using 'Image with Alire

[Simon Wright]

Seth Workman <saworkman1@gmail.com> writes:

> I have only started learning about Ada recently and have discovered
> the 'Image attribute that can be used on all types starting in ada
> 2022.
>
> I am using Alire and added the following to include the `-gnat2022` switch.
> ```
>       for Default_Switches ("Ada") use Learning_Config.Ada_Compiler_Switches & ("-gnat2022");
> ```
>
> The Alire documentation warns about switches ~"In general, this should
> be avoided to preserve consistency in the ecosystem"

Not 100% sure what this means!

> Is this the correct way about adding this switch or is there a way to
> use a toolchain that already has it by default?

This works fine, but in your alire.toml you could say

[build-switches]
"*".ada_version = "ada2022"

or

[build-switches]
"*".ada_version = ["-gnat2022"]

See "Release Information" (near the end) and "Build Profiles and
Switches" in the documentation.

Re: Using 'Image with Alire

[Seth Workman]

On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 4:58:18 PM UTC-5, Simon Wright wrote:
> [build-switches] 
> "*".ada_version = "ada2022" 
> 
> or 
> 
> [build-switches] 
> "*".ada_version = ["-gnat2022"] 
> 
> See "Release Information" (near the end) and "Build Profiles and 
> Switches" in the documentation.

I see now, I think using "*".ada_version = "ada2022" is better for this case