Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Matt Borchers]

Not a lot of personal experience, but I hear people really like Visual Studio Code.  It has an Ada language pack that can be installed.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Luke A. Guest]

On 19/02/2021 03:17, Matt Borchers wrote:
> Not a lot of personal experience, but I hear people really like Visual Studio Code.  It has an Ada language pack that can be installed.
> 
The Intellisense is iffy at best so don't really rely on it.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[ldries46]

Op 19-2-2021 om 4:17 schreef Matt Borchers:
> Not a lot of personal experience, but I hear people really like Visual Studio Code.  It has an Ada language pack that can be installed.
As the Ada Pack is a downloadable one I cannot see how it is to be installed

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Chris Townley]

On 20/02/2021 15:48, ldries46 wrote:
> Op 19-2-2021 om 4:17 schreef Matt Borchers:
>> Not a lot of personal experience, but I hear people really like Visual 
>> Studio Code.  It has an Ada language pack that can be installed.
> As the Ada Pack is a downloadable one I cannot see how it is to be 
> installed

Simply find the extension from within VSS, then click on the install 
button. Simple!

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[ldries46]

Op 20-2-2021 om 17:12 schreef Chris Townley:
> On 20/02/2021 15:48, ldries46 wrote:
>> Op 19-2-2021 om 4:17 schreef Matt Borchers:
>>> Not a lot of personal experience, but I hear people really like 
>>> Visual Studio Code.  It has an Ada language pack that can be installed.
>> As the Ada Pack is a downloadable one I cannot see how it is to be 
>> installed
>
> Simply find the extension from within VSS, then click on the install 
> button. Simple!
I found the Language support 22.0.4 for Ada and installed that It sayd 
it han .gpr support. But I cannot find how to run (debug) the project 
(existing project wit about 20-30 packages)

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Roger Mc]

I have been using GNAT Studio successfully for sometime but, as it looks like being discontinued, I decided to try VSCode but have come up with a problem trying to install VSS.
Spawn installed OK using alr but 
alr get vss  resulted in
Cloning into '/System/Volumes/Data/Ada_Source/vss_21.0.0_ded12078'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 160, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (160/160), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (67/67), done.
remote: Total 2776 (delta 103), reused 122 (delta 92), pack-reused 2616
Receiving objects: 100% (2776/2776), 562.66 KiB | 677.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1708/1708), done.
fatal: reference is not a tree: ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086
error: Command ["git", "checkout", "-q", "ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086"] exited with code 128

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Simon Wright]

Roger Mc <rogermcm2@gmail.com> writes:

> I have been using GNAT Studio successfully for sometime but, as it
> looks like being discontinued

This is currently the case on macOS only.

I've tried to build the 2020 release for macOS but ended up in Python
garbage collection hell (GC in embedded Python relies on the programmer
managing reference counts by hand, with little if any checking until you
try to dereference something whose ref count is already zero.)

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[ldries46]

Op 22-2-2021 om 12:20 schreef Simon Wright:
> Roger Mc <rogermcm2@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I have been using GNAT Studio successfully for sometime but, as it
>> looks like being discontinued
> This is currently the case on macOS only.
>
> I've tried to build the 2020 release for macOS but ended up in Python
> garbage collection hell (GC in embedded Python relies on the programmer
> managing reference counts by hand, with little if any checking until you
> try to dereference something whose ref count is already zero.)
On Windows 10 the case is the debugger does not Start (Program comes in 
"Program does noet react" mode So I am searching for another combination 
of freeware version of an Ada development system

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Vadim Godunko]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 10:00:41 AM UTC+3, roge...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have been using GNAT Studio successfully for sometime but, as it looks like being discontinued, I decided to try VSCode but have come up with a problem trying to install VSS. 
> Spawn installed OK using alr but 
> alr get vss resulted in 
> Cloning into '/System/Volumes/Data/Ada_Source/vss_21.0.0_ded12078'... 
> remote: Enumerating objects: 160, done. 
> remote: Counting objects: 100% (160/160), done. 
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (67/67), done. 
> remote: Total 2776 (delta 103), reused 122 (delta 92), pack-reused 2616 
> Receiving objects: 100% (2776/2776), 562.66 KiB | 677.00 KiB/s, done. 
> Resolving deltas: 100% (1708/1708), done. 
> fatal: reference is not a tree: ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086 
> error: Command ["git", "checkout", "-q", "ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086"] exited with code 128

Could you please report this issue n GitHub, see https://github.com/AdaCore/VSS?

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Roger Mc]

On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 7:11:42 PM UTC+11, vgod...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 10:00:41 AM UTC+3, roge...@gmail.com wrote: 
> > I have been using GNAT Studio successfully for sometime but, as it looks like being discontinued, I decided to try VSCode but have come up with a problem trying to install VSS. 
> > Spawn installed OK using alr but 
> > alr get vss resulted in 
> > Cloning into '/System/Volumes/Data/Ada_Source/vss_21.0.0_ded12078'... 
> > remote: Enumerating objects: 160, done. 
> > remote: Counting objects: 100% (160/160), done. 
> > remote: Compressing objects: 100% (67/67), done. 
> > remote: Total 2776 (delta 103), reused 122 (delta 92), pack-reused 2616 
> > Receiving objects: 100% (2776/2776), 562.66 KiB | 677.00 KiB/s, done. 
> > Resolving deltas: 100% (1708/1708), done. 
> > fatal: reference is not a tree: ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086 
> > error: Command ["git", "checkout", "-q", "ded12078cfcaeb6c3c7fc1ffeea9e0d5cf4a1086"] exited with code 128
> Could you please report this issue n GitHub, see https://github.com/AdaCore/VSS?
OK. I have submitted this issue to github.com/AdaCore/VSS

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Vadim Godunko]

On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 1:06:15 PM UTC+3, roge...@gmail.com wrote:

> OK. I have submitted this issue to github.com/AdaCore/VSS

Thank you!

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[ldries46]

Op 18-2-2021 om 13:41 schreef ldries46:
> At this moment I am using GNAT Studio for Ada programming.
> Now I have two reasons for a possible change:
>
>  1. I read somewhere that the freeware version is not going to be
>     continued. Is that true?
>  2. I have proroblems with the program (I cannot use it any more
>     becasuse it is reacts with the program I am busy with "Program
>     does not react".
>
> Because Gnatstudio has  simple one command Instalation procedure it is 
> easy for me to understand for me hoe to install it. Is there an 
> alternative that is almost as easy to install which I can use, 
> preferably with an simple and good readable description how to install it.
>
>
> L. Dries
>
My problem has become more acute. Till now I avoided the debugging 
option in the GNAT 2020 Community edition by badding print statements 
within the normal running program but now I have an error mentioned 
somewhere within the Ada. Unbounded_Strings which is used on a lot of 
positions in the program. The only way I know to detect wher the problem 
is is using the debug option with several brakpoints and as possible 
shifting these around to find this error but uding the debu option just 
makes the program coming to the "program does not react". So either this 
problem must be solved (who knows how) or an other compiler and debugger 
combination that really works (and is freeware) Who knows which and has 
a good tutorial how to install. Up to this moment with Visual Suodio I 
do not know how to do that.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 13:43:20 +0100, ldries46 <bertus.dries@planet.nl>
declaimed the following:

>My problem has become more acute. Till now I avoided the debugging 
>option in the GNAT 2020 Community edition by badding print statements 
>within the normal running program but now I have an error mentioned 
>somewhere within the Ada. Unbounded_Strings which is used on a lot of 
>positions in the program. The only way I know to detect wher the problem 
>is is using the debug option with several brakpoints and as possible 
>shifting these around to find this error but uding the debu option just 
>makes the program coming to the "program does not react". So either this 
>problem must be solved (who knows how) or an other compiler and debugger 
>combination that really works (and is freeware) Who knows which and has 
>a good tutorial how to install. Up to this moment with Visual Suodio I 
>do not know how to do that.

	So far as I know, the debugger used for GNAT is a version of GDB.

	GDB originated with a command line interface. Have you tried opening a
command shell and invoking the debugger (and your executable) from there,
then using GDB commands to set any needed breakpoints, etc.?

	I've never used GDB so my knowledge is rather limited -- I'd have to
keep the help file open in a browser. The last debugger I had any real
experience using was the one in (Open)VMS, and I was usually debugging F77
logic. I've also not updated to GNAT 2020 yet -- looks like 2019 has some
Python related glitches too, but it did run...

-=-=-
C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents\_Hg-Repositories\Ada Progs>gdb threeint.exe
C:\GNAT\2019\bin\gdb.exe: warning: Couldn't determine a path for the index
cache directory.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\__init__.py", line 143, in
auto_load_packages
    __import__(modname)
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\command\frame_filters.py",
line 21, in <module>
    import copy
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\copy.py", line 52, in
<module>
    import weakref
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\weakref.py", line 14,
in <module>
    from _weakref import (
ImportError: cannot import name _remove_dead_weakref

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\__init__.py", line 143, in
auto_load_packages
    __import__(modname)
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\command\pretty_printers.py",
line 19, in <module>
    import copy
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\copy.py", line 52, in
<module>
    import weakref
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\weakref.py", line 14,
in <module>
    from _weakref import (
ImportError: cannot import name _remove_dead_weakref

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\__init__.py", line 143, in
auto_load_packages
    __import__(modname)
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3/python\gdb\command\type_printers.py",
line 17, in <module>
    import copy
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\copy.py", line 52, in
<module>
    import weakref
  File "c:\gnat\2019\share\gdb-8.3\python-2.7.16\lib\weakref.py", line 14,
in <module>
    from _weakref import (
ImportError: cannot import name _remove_dead_weakref

GNU gdb (GDB) 8.3 for GNAT Community 2019 [rev=gdb-8.3-ref-194-g3fc1095]
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
See your support agreement for details of warranty and support.
If you do not have a current support agreement, then there is absolutely
no warranty for this version of GDB.
Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-pc-mingw32".
Type "show configuration" for configuration details.
For help, type "help".
Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"...
Reading symbols from threeint.exe...
(gdb) r
Starting program: C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents\_Hg-Repositories\Ada
Progs\threeint.exe
[New Thread 15068.0x17a0]
[New Thread 15068.0x5f0]
Enter three integers => 123
456
8373

A + B =         579
C - B =  7917
[Thread 15068.0x17a0 exited with code 0]
[Thread 15068.0x5f0 exited with code 0]
[Inferior 1 (process 15068) exited normally]
(gdb) q

C:\Users\Wulfraed\Documents\_Hg-Repositories\Ada Progs>
-=-=-


-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
	wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Simon Wright]

ldries46 <bertus.dries@planet.nl> writes:

> My problem has become more acute. Till now I avoided the debugging
> option in the GNAT 2020 Community edition by badding print statements 
> within the normal running program but now I have an error mentioned
> somewhere within the Ada. Unbounded_Strings which is used on a lot of 
> positions in the program. The only way I know to detect wher the
> problem is is using the debug option with several brakpoints and as
> possible shifting these around to find this error but uding the debu
> option just makes the program coming to the "program does not
> react".

If you can possibly bear it, you should try the command line. I don't
know what that would look like on Windows (unless you're using Cygwin?
which is Unix-y).

Sample program:

   pragma Assertion_Policy (Check);
   procedure Raiser is
      procedure Inner (N : Natural) is
         pragma Assert (N > 5);
      begin
         Inner (N - 1);
      end Inner;
   begin
      Inner (10);
   end Raiser;

Now, I'm sure you've built with a proper GPR, but to simplify the
example:

   gnatmake -g -O raiser.adb

Here, this produces the executable "raiser" in the current directory,
but if your GPR specifies the Object_Dir and not the Exec_Dir the
executable (in your case "raiser.exe") ends up in the Object_Dir, drat
it.

A very simple debugging session, assuming that the command "gdb" runs OK
might look like:

   $ gdb raiser
   GNU gdb (GDB) 7.10 for GNAT Community 2020 [rev=52ea9f0a422c99f69e7e6c44a04e654ceebc42e3]
   Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
   This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
   See your support agreement for details of warranty and support.
   If you do not have a current support agreement, then there is absolutely
   no warranty for this version of GDB.  Type "show copying"
   and "show warranty" for details.
   This GDB was configured as "x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0".
   Type "show configuration" for configuration details.For help, type "help".
   Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"...
   Reading symbols from raiser...done.

Stop on any exception

   (gdb) catch exception
   Catchpoint 1: all Ada exceptions

Run to the start of the program

   (gdb) start
   Temporary breakpoint 2 at 0x100001f54: file raiser.adb, line 9.
   Starting program: /Users/simon/tmp/raiser 
   [New Thread 0x2303 of process 71543]
   
   Temporary breakpoint 2, raiser () at raiser.adb:9
   9	   Inner (10);

Carry on

   (gdb) continue
   Continuing.

Oops! (note, gdb knows to stop at the point in my code where the
exception was raised, rather than down in the details of the runtime
system calls)

   Catchpoint 1, SYSTEM.ASSERTIONS.ASSERT_FAILURE (raiser.adb:4) at 0x0000000100001f17 in raiser.inner (n=5) at raiser.adb:4
   4	      pragma Assert (N > 5);

Print a backtrace of how we got here

   (gdb) backtrace
   #0  <__gnat_debug_raise_exception> (
       e=0x1000142e0 <system.assertions.assert_failure>, message=...)
       at s-excdeb.adb:43
   #1  0x00000001000038ed in ada.exceptions.complete_occurrence (x=0x1004040c0)
       at a-except.adb:931
   #2  0x00000001000038fd in ada.exceptions.complete_and_propagate_occurrence (
       x=0x1004040c0) at a-except.adb:942
   #3  0x0000000100003952 in <__gnat_raise_exception> (
       e=0x1000142e0 <system.assertions.assert_failure>, message=...)
       at a-except.adb:984
   #4  0x0000000100004c13 in system.assertions.raise_assert_failure (msg=...)
       at s-assert.adb:46
   #5  0x0000000100001f17 in raiser.inner (n=5) at raiser.adb:4
   #6  0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=6) at raiser.adb:6
   #7  0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=7) at raiser.adb:6
   #8  0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=8) at raiser.adb:6
   #9  0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=9) at raiser.adb:6
   #10 0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=10) at raiser.adb:6
   #11 0x0000000100001f65 in raiser () at raiser.adb:9

Look at the code at frame 8 (#8 in the backtrace)

   (gdb) frame 8
   #8  0x0000000100001f3c in raiser.inner (n=8) at raiser.adb:6
   6	      Inner (N - 1);

Print a variable

   (gdb) print n
   $1 = 8
   (gdb) 

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Stephen Leake]

ldries46 <bertus.dries@planet.nl> writes:

> Op 18-2-2021 om 13:41 schreef ldries46:
>> At this moment I am using GNAT Studio for Ada programming.
>> Now I have two reasons for a possible change:
>>
>>  1. I read somewhere that the freeware version is not going to be
>>     continued. Is that true?
>>  2. I have proroblems with the program (I cannot use it any more
>>     becasuse it is reacts with the program I am busy with "Program
>>     does not react".
>>
>> Because Gnatstudio has  simple one command Instalation procedure it
>> is easy for me to understand for me hoe to install it. Is there an 
>> alternative that is almost as easy to install which I can use,
>> preferably with an simple and good readable description how to
>> install it.
>>
>>
>> L. Dries
>>
> My problem has become more acute. 

I suggest you try Emacs ada-mode (it's an ELPA package).

Installing is a little messy; you have to install some gnatcoll
components and run a shell program. Which means you have to install
mingw64; strongly recommended anyway.

You can report problems here or on the Emacs ada-mode mailing list
(https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/ada-mode/)

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2021-02-25 13:43, ldries46 wrote:
> Op 18-2-2021 om 13:41 schreef ldries46:
>> At this moment I am using GNAT Studio for Ada programming.
>> Now I have two reasons for a possible change:
>>
>>  1. I read somewhere that the freeware version is not going to be
>>     continued. Is that true?
>>  2. I have proroblems with the program (I cannot use it any more
>>     becasuse it is reacts with the program I am busy with "Program
>>     does not react".
>>
>> Because Gnatstudio has  simple one command Instalation procedure it is 
>> easy for me to understand for me hoe to install it. Is there an 
>> alternative that is almost as easy to install which I can use, 
>> preferably with an simple and good readable description how to install 
>> it.
>>
>>
>> L. Dries
>>
> My problem has become more acute. Till now I avoided the debugging 
> option in the GNAT 2020 Community edition by badding print statements 
> within the normal running program but now I have an error mentioned 
> somewhere within the Ada. Unbounded_Strings which is used on a lot of 
> positions in the program. The only way I know to detect wher the problem 
> is is using the debug option with several brakpoints and as possible 
> shifting these around to find this error but uding the debu option just 
> makes the program coming to the "program does not react".

GDB and IDE are different things. GDB never really worked for complex 
projects and, I am afraid, it never will.

Then resolving a complex issue like you describe with debugger is 
unrealistic anyway. If you have a memory corruption, e.g. per concurrent 
access, debugger is not much help, even a good debugger, rather than the 
garbage GDB is.

The first step is to set an exception handler and trace all exceptions 
before they propagate. See GNAT.Exception_Action.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Stephen Leake]

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:

> GDB and IDE are different things. GDB never really worked for complex
> projects and, I am afraid, it never will.

GDB has always met my needs, programming spacecraft simulators for NASA.


-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Ludovic Brenta]

Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> writes:

> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>
>> GDB and IDE are different things. GDB never really worked for complex
>> projects and, I am afraid, it never will.
>
> GDB has always met my needs, programming spacecraft simulators for
> NASA.

In addition:

For memory corruption, the memcheck tool of valgrind is extremely
valuable.  This is a rare occurrence in Ada but use-after-free can still
happen.

For race conditions, the helgrind tool of valgrind is extremely
valuable.  Again, a rare occurrence in Ada if you use protected objects
but not so rare if you use rendez-vous between tasks.

Of course, we're only talking about "complex" projects here.  That is,
technology sufficiently "advanced" to seem "magical" :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[John Perry]

On Sunday, February 28, 2021 at 4:54:30 PM UTC-6, Stephen Leake wrote:
> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mai...@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes: 
> 
> > GDB and IDE are different things. GDB never really worked for complex 
> > projects and, I am afraid, it never will.
> GDB has always met my needs, programming spacecraft simulators for NASA. 
> 

Honest question: do you have advice for debugging exceptions in GDB?*** I had to debug an exception the other day & I had a humdinger of a time determining what caused it. When the Ada RT raises an exception in GDB, GDB quits the program state altogether, so I have to employ guess-and-check methods to figure out where, say, an Ordered_Map Key_Error occurs. This is contrary to how GDB handles C++ exceptions: the program stops immediately, so that you can examine the state, move up and down through the stack, etc.

I've used GDB a lot with C++, so I don't find it as bad as Dmitry says, but it's a much poorer experience when debugging Ada. (Still useful!)

***Aside from writing programs that don't raise them, of course. ;-)

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Simon Wright]

John Perry <john.perry@usm.edu> writes:

> Honest question: do you have advice for debugging exceptions in
> GDB?*** I had to debug an exception the other day & I had a humdinger
> of a time determining what caused it. When the Ada RT raises an
> exception in GDB, GDB quits the program state altogether, so I have to
> employ guess-and-check methods to figure out where, say, an
> Ordered_Map Key_Error occurs. This is contrary to how GDB handles C++
> exceptions: the program stops immediately, so that you can examine the
> state, move up and down through the stack, etc.

I don't remember experiencing this? "catch exception" or "catch
exception Key_Error". I may not be able to see much in the RTS, but
I can certainly inspect my own code.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Emmanuel Briot]

> Honest question: do you have advice for debugging exceptions in GDB?***

Do you know about the "catch exception" command ? gdb will automatically break when an exception is raised. There could be a lot of these, so you can also try the variant "catch exception unhandled".
This doesn't always help to investigate what happened just before an exception, so we have also started using the "rr" tool, which basically executes your program and records everything at every step, so that you can replay it. There is a cost in performance of course, but not as big as one would expect.

Finally, going back to the subject of this thread (alternative IDEs), I just found the following video on AdaCore's website. It describes the new cross-referencing engine in GNAT Studio, and how it can be used with other IDEs, in particular Visual Studio Code.
https://www.adacore.com/product-update-2020/gnatstudio-update

Emmanuel

rr (was: Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio)

[Simon Wright]

Emmanuel Briot <briot.emmanuel@gmail.com> writes:

> Do you know about the "catch exception" command ? gdb will
> automatically break when an exception is raised. There could be a lot
> of these, so you can also try the variant "catch exception unhandled".
> This doesn't always help to investigate what happened just before an
> exception, so we have also started using the "rr" tool, which
> basically executes your program and records everything at every step,
> so that you can replay it. There is a cost in performance of course,
> but not as big as one would expect.

It's a shame (but not surprising!) that this is Linux-only.

It'd probably really help with my current problem, where GCC 11.0.0 and
GNAT CE 2020 arm-eabi throw an ICE when compiling a generalised
iteration with my Cortex GNAT RTS (no problem compiling against an
AdaCore RTS). Building the compiler with debugging, OK-ish (CFLAGS='-g
-O0'). Finding the exact invocation of gcc, OK (gprbuild -v
--keep-temp-files). Calling that invocation and getting GDB to start
with the actual gnat1 call, OK (add -wrapper gdb,--args to the gcc
command). Setting a break on the place where the ICE is raised, OK (b
sem_ch8.adb:5490). But then you've got a lengthy traceback, at some
point in which the compiler was misled by something in my runtime to
construct something wrongly.

There are definitely runtime-related aspects to the analysis: f.e. in
Exp_Ch6.Add_Task_Actuals_To_Build_In_Place_Call, there's a line (:596
here)

      --  Use a dummy _master actual in case of No_Task_Hierarchy

      if Restriction_Active (No_Task_Hierarchy) then
         Actual := New_Occurrence_Of (RTE (RE_Library_Task_Level), Loc);

Someone familiar with the compiler internals, and how to explore them in
the debugger, would no doubt find what's wrong in a flash, but I doubt
that posting on the GCC Bugzilla would get a speedy response!

https://github.com/rr-debugger/rr

Re: rr (was: Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio)

[Emmanuel Briot]

> It'd probably really help with my current problem, where GCC 11.0.0 and 
> GNAT CE 2020 arm-eabi throw an ICE when compiling a generalised 
> iteration

Might be unrelated, but: we have noticed recently that a generalized iteration ("for..of")
was wrongly calling `activate_task`. In particular, this resulted in errors when executing such
loops from a protected object and enabling the checks that no potentially blocking operation
is executed in such contexts.

We reported this to AdaCore who fixed it in their more recent wavefronts. I am not sure when the
error started to occur though, so maybe not that helpful to you :-)

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[John Perry]

On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 2:08:25 AM UTC-6, briot.e...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Honest question: do you have advice for debugging exceptions in GDB?***
> Do you know about the "catch exception" command ? gdb will automatically break when an exception is raised. There could be a lot of these, so you can also try the variant "catch exception unhandled". 

Nope, that's new to me. I'll try it next time, thanks.

john perry

Re: rr

[Simon Wright]

Emmanuel Briot <briot.emmanuel@gmail.com> writes:

>> It'd probably really help with my current problem, where GCC 11.0.0 and 
>> GNAT CE 2020 arm-eabi throw an ICE when compiling a generalised 
>> iteration
>
> Might be unrelated, but: we have noticed recently that a generalized
> iteration ("for..of") was wrongly calling `activate_task`. In
> particular, this resulted in errors when executing such loops from a
> protected object and enabling the checks that no potentially blocking
> operation is executed in such contexts.
>
> We reported this to AdaCore who fixed it in their more recent
> wavefronts. I am not sure when the
> error started to occur though, so maybe not that helpful to you :-)

I reported this, and Eric has come up with the goods! We're at 11.0.1
now (how can you tell what release ID a particular GCC commit will
produce?), so there's a good chance it'll make it into the 11.1.0
release.

Not that there are likely to be loads of people around making RTSs with
Ada.Containers for MCUs. The issue didn't cause problems with AdaCore's
ravenscar-full-stm32f4.

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=99360

Re: rr

[Simon Wright]

Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> writes:

> I doubt that posting on the GCC Bugzilla would get a speedy response

In this case, it did[1]. Nothing like being able to provide a reproducer
(and having ICE, Internal Compiler Error, in the description may help
too).

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=99360

Re: rr

[Emmanuel Briot]

> > I doubt that posting on the GCC Bugzilla would get a speedy response
> In this case, it did[1]. Nothing like being able to provide a reproducer 
> (and having ICE, Internal Compiler Error, in the description may help 
> too). 

Even as a supported customer, it does help a lot when we can provide a small self-contained reproducer. Such bugs (including with "ICE" in the subject, we use the same trick :-) tend to be fixed pretty fast.
This is time consuming for compilation errors, but on the whole it takes one to two hours in general.
For run time issues (we currently have an optimization bug for instance), this is way more complex...

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Jerry]

On Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 5:07:03 AM UTC-7, ldries46 wrote:
> I found the Language support 22.0.4 for Ada and installed that It sayd 
> it han .gpr support. But I cannot find how to run (debug) the project 
> (existing project wit about 20-30 packages)
I got Ada running with Visual Studio Code and found the process to be brutal, but I'm not very smart so you will no doubt do better. I complained to a list at AdaCore and they promised to make it better. I probably did a bunch of things wrong but I finally got it to work. I installed the Ada Language Server https://github.com/AdaCore/ada_language_server and then spent hours reading VScode docs and learning how to edit several json files. I brought over some bash scripts from TextMate that I had modified from the Ada plug for that app (thanks to whoever did that years ago). I edited keybindings to make my fingers think they were still in TextMate. (I also spent time customizing a theme so that my eyeballs no longer hurt--more json editing.) _Then_ I added the Language Support for Ada extension from within VSC which is easy--just click. I can't compare the result to anything useful because this is nearly my first experience with something like a real IDE (played with GNAT Studio a few times) but it all seems pretty cool to me. When it works. The extension crashes of course. I found a severe crasher and have just now sent an MWE to AdaCore so let's see if anything happens with that. If interested scroll to the end at https://github.com/AdaCore/ada_language_server/issues/202.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[ldries46]

Op 2-3-2021 om 6:11 schreef John Perry:
> On Sunday, February 28, 2021 at 4:54:30 PM UTC-6, Stephen Leake wrote:
>> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mai...@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>>
>>> GDB and IDE are different things. GDB never really worked for complex
>>> projects and, I am afraid, it never will.
>> GDB has always met my needs, programming spacecraft simulators for NASA.
>>
> Honest question: do you have advice for debugging exceptions in GDB?*** I had to debug an exception the other day & I had a humdinger of a time determining what caused it. When the Ada RT raises an exception in GDB, GDB quits the program state altogether, so I have to employ guess-and-check methods to figure out where, say, an Ordered_Map Key_Error occurs. This is contrary to how GDB handles C++ exceptions: the program stops immediately, so that you can examine the state, move up and down through the stack, etc.
>
> I've used GDB a lot with C++, so I don't find it as bad as Dmitry says, but it's a much poorer experience when debugging Ada. (Still useful!)
>
> ***Aside from writing programs that don't raise them, of course. ;-)
I am normally using severaldifferent methods of debugging tohether:

 1. using an extra package that is only used to create simple output to
    the cmd window or the equivalent in the GPS studio program. This
    creates output over the full run the program m makes. By deleting
    the call to the package it is easy todelete all extra statements.
 2. In the case of programs with a GUI using extra calls to that GUI
 3. GDB in situations where it necessary to follow the program statement
    by statement

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 05/03/2021 à 13:58, ldries46 a écrit :
> I am normally using severaldifferent methods of debugging tohether:
> 
> 1. using an extra package that is only used to create simple output to
>     the cmd window or the equivalent in the GPS studio program. This
>     creates output over the full run the program m makes. By deleting
>     the call to the package it is easy todelete all extra statements.
To do this, I recommend ;-) package Debug from Adalog, see:
https://adalog.fr/en/components.html#Debug

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[DrPi]

I also made some tests with VSC on Windows10 recently.
In VSC, I installed :
- Adacore "Language Support for Ada" 22.0.4
- Entomy "Ada-snippets" 0.3.0
- Brandon Fowler "exe Runner" 0.1.0
- WebFreak "Native Debug" 0.25.0

For my test, I used sdv2ada project.
In the project folder, I created a .vscode folder.
In this folder, I added 1 file named tasks.json :
{
     "version": "2.0.0",
     "tasks": [
       {
         "label": "Build ",
         "command": "gprbuild",
         "args": ["*.gpr", "-p"],
         "group": {
           "kind": "build",
           "isDefault": true
         }
       }
     ]
}


Hiting CTRL+SHIFT+B triggers a build.
The "TERMINAL" tab shows the compiler output.
Problem : I can't click on an error.


In "Explorer" view, right click svd2ada.exe and click on "Run 
Executable" to... run the executable. The output can be viewed in the 
"TERMINAL" tab.


In the "Run" view, click on "Launch Program" then click on "Add 
Configuration...".
Select "{} GDB: Launch Program". A file named launch.json is created.
Modify the "target" to be "./svd2ada.exe".
The file should look like this :
{
     "version": "0.2.0",
     "configurations": [
         {
             "type": "gdb",
             "request": "launch",
             "name": "Launch Program",
             "target": "./svd2ada.exe",
             "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
             "valuesFormatting": "parseText"
         },
     ]
}

In the "Run" view, clicking on "Launch Program" icon (green triangle) 
triggers a debug session of svd2ada.exe
Hiting F5 also triggers a debug session.
The "DEBUG CONSOLE" tab shows the output.
When the program is built in release mode, it is simply run.
When the program is built in debug mode, you can use breakpoints and 
other debug functionalities.
Not all debug commands work. GDB Step actions do not always work 
correctly. The debug session often hangs. You then have to kill it and 
restart, when it doesn't kill itself.


Next step : Try with an embedded target (ARM platform).

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Jérôme Haguet]

Le vendredi 5 mars 2021 à 14:37:52 UTC+1, DrPi a écrit :
>...
> Hiting CTRL+SHIFT+B triggers a build. 
> The "TERMINAL" tab shows the compiler output. 
> Problem : I can't click on an error. 
> ...

If I understand correctly what you meant here, this might help : 
https://github.com/AdaCore/ada_language_server/issues/541
In a few words 
- use a problemMatcher where fileLocation is set to absolute.
- add -gnatef

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[DrPi]

Le 06/03/2021 à 13:14, Jérôme Haguet a écrit :
> Le vendredi 5 mars 2021 à 14:37:52 UTC+1, DrPi a écrit :
>> ...
>> Hiting CTRL+SHIFT+B triggers a build.
>> The "TERMINAL" tab shows the compiler output.
>> Problem : I can't click on an error.
>> ...
> 
> If I understand correctly what you meant here, this might help :
> https://github.com/AdaCore/ada_language_server/issues/541
> In a few words
> - use a problemMatcher where fileLocation is set to absolute.
> - add -gnatef
> 
Thanks for the link.
Not a perfect solution (error message is incomplete in Problems tab) but 
much better than nothing.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Daniel Norte Moraes]

Em quinta-feira, 18 de fevereiro de 2021 às 09:55:02 UTC-3, ldries46 escreveu:
> At this moment I am using GNAT Studio for Ada programming.
> Now I have two reasons for a possible change:
> I read somewhere that the freeware version is not going to be continued. Is that true?
> I have proroblems with the program (I cannot use it any more becasuse it is reacts with the program I am busy with "Program does not react".
> Because Gnatstudio has simple one command Instalation procedure it is easy for me to understand for me hoe to install it. Is there an alternative that is almost as easy to install which I can use, preferably with an simple and good readable description how to install it.
> 
> L. Dries

I'm Happy com Atom Editor. just install packages for Ada and lint with gpr.
the linter support just one gpr file per dir,  but you can open many 'project dirs' for yours gprfiles ^^
the packages are installable from 'edit' -> 'preferences' -> 'install'

[]'s of seventy rounds, 
Daniel.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Jaime Tarrasa]

El jueves, 18 de febrero de 2021 a las 13:55:02 UTC+1, ldries46 escribió:
> At this moment I am using GNAT Studio for Ada programming.
> Now I have two reasons for a possible change:
> I read somewhere that the freeware version is not going to be continued. Is that true?
> I have proroblems with the program (I cannot use it any more becasuse it is reacts with the program I am busy with "Program does not react".
> Because Gnatstudio has simple one command Instalation procedure it is easy for me to understand for me hoe to install it. Is there an alternative that is almost as easy to install which I can use, preferably with an simple and good readable description how to install it.
> 
> L. Dries

Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going to be continued. Another sign of where is going Ada. Another nail in the coffin.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Egil H H]

On Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 5:17:13 PM UTC+1, Jaime Tarrasa wrote:
> Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going to be continued. Another sign of where is going Ada. Another nail in the coffin.

What are you talking about? Of course Gnat Studio is going to be continued.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Stephen Leake]

Jaime Tarrasa <jm.tarrasa@gmail.com> writes:

> Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going
> to be continued. 

Can you point to an official announcement from AdaCore on this?

otherwise you are just spreading FUD.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Simon Wright]

Jaime Tarrasa <jm.tarrasa@gmail.com> writes:

> Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going
> to be continued. Another sign of where is going Ada. Another nail in
> the coffin.

At present, AdaCore don't provide GNAT Studio in the macOS version of
their Community Edition.

They certainly provide it in other versions of CE, and to thir
customers.

Whether they supply it to their macOS-using customers, I can't say.

And, they may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS
version.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Roger Mc]

On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:07:05 AM UTC+11, Simon Wright wrote:
> Jaime Tarrasa <jm.ta...@gmail.com> writes: 
> 
> > Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going 
> > to be continued. Another sign of where is going Ada. Another nail in 
> > the coffin.
> At present, AdaCore don't provide GNAT Studio in the macOS version of 
> their Community Edition. 
> 
> They certainly provide it in other versions of CE, and to thir 
> customers. 
> 
> Whether they supply it to their macOS-using customers, I can't say. 
> 
> And, they may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS 
> version.
I am very uncomfortable with "may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS 
> version".
I am currently looking at SlickEdit as an alternative.

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

On 3/14/21 12:35 AM, Roger Mc wrote:
> On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:07:05 AM UTC+11, Simon Wright wrote:
>> Jaime Tarrasa <jm.ta...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Gnat Studio freeware, one of the flagships tools of Ada, is not going
>>> to be continued. Another sign of where is going Ada. Another nail in
>>> the coffin.
>> At present, AdaCore don't provide GNAT Studio in the macOS version of
>> their Community Edition.
>>
>> They certainly provide it in other versions of CE, and to thir
>> customers.
>>
>> Whether they supply it to their macOS-using customers, I can't say.
>>
>> And, they may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS
>> version.
> I am very uncomfortable with "may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS
>> version".
> I am currently looking at SlickEdit as an alternative.

This all seems to be FUD. Gnat Studio is open source 
(https://github.com/AdaCore/gps). Anyone can get a copy of the code and build 
their own version. There are versions distributed with some Unix variants that 
seem to be separate from the AdaCore version.

There is no reason to think that it will become unavailable or cease to be useful.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"I'm particularly glad that these lovely children were
here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic
frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen
in this day and age."
Blazing Saddles
88

Re: Alternative for Gnat Studio

[Simon Wright]

Roger Mc <rogermcm2@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:07:05 AM UTC+11, Simon Wright wrote:

>> And, they may at some point decide to provide it again in the macOS 
>> version.
> I am very uncomfortable with "may at some point decide to provide it
> again in the macOS version".
> I am currently looking at SlickEdit as an alternative.

When I want to check out some aspect of Emacs ada-mode's behaviour, I
use the GNAT CE 2019 version of GNAT Studio. Still running just fine on
Catalina.