It’s more than year that I stopped learning Ada, but I’m back!!!. Anyway, it’s really important for me to understand what tools can I use and how to use them, before even start coding in Ada. There are some basic concepts/ tools that I had to learn the hard way.

Basic file type

Ada language uses .ads and .adb files to organize the packages.

• .ads are the specification files, similar to .h in C
• .adb are the implementation files, similar to .c in C

For example, a folder structure can be as follows:

.
├── build
├── common
│   ├── stm32f40x.ads
│   ├── stm32f40x-gpio.ads
│   └── stm32f40x-rcc.ads
└── src
    └── main.adb

The compiler GNAT

GNAT is the official compiler for Ada, which is part of the GNU Compiler collection or GCC for friends. Three steps are needed to create an executable file from an Ada source file:

1. The source file must first be compiled.
2. The source file then must be bound using the GNAT binder.
3. All appropriate object files must be linked to produce an executable

To learn more check the User’s Guide

GNAT Project Manager

It’s a tool that allows you to manage complex builds involving several source files or libraries, also can be customize using options defined by the user. The coolest thing is that can handle C and C++.

Basically it’s a replacement for Makefile that is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier to understand. Just check this example out:

project myProject is
   for Main use ("src/main.adb");
   for Source_Dirs use ("src","common");
   for Runtime ("ada") use "ravenscar-full-stm32f4";
   for Target use "arm-eabi";
   for Languages use ("Ada");
   for Object_Dir use "build";
   for Create_Missing_Dirs use "True";
end myProject;

Even if you have no idea about Ada you may able to understand what going on. But with Makefile I always need a Cheatsheet.

More info about GNAT project manager:

• Let’s get started link
• Intro to GPR link
• Official documentation link

Full Project

Here is my project example:

├── ProjectFolder
│   ├── build
│   ├── common
│   │   ├── stm32f40x.ads
│   │   ├── stm32f40x-gpio.ads
│   │   └── stm32f40x-rcc.ads
│   ├── myProject.gpr
│   ├── README.md
│   └── src
│       └── main.adb

• build is where my binaries will be.
• common is where the files I include in my main file.
• myProject.gpr is my gprbuilder for this project, and it’s the same file as in the section above.
• README.md is just the readme file of this project
• src is where my source files are. In this case I only have one file main.adb.

In order to compile this code I need to use gprbuild. Since there is just one .gpr it’s enough to run gprbuild but if you have several .gpr files, then you should specify which one you will use.

Running only gprbuild

$ gprbuild
using project file myProject.gpr
Compile
   [Ada]          main.adb
   [Ada]          stm32f40x.ads
   [Ada]          stm32f40x-gpio.ads
   [Ada]          stm32f40x-rcc.ads
Bind
   [gprbind]      main.bexch
   [Ada]          main.ali
Link
   [link]         main.adb

Giving a project file:

$ gprbuild myProject.gpr
Compile
   [Ada]          main.adb
   [Ada]          stm32f40x.ads
   [Ada]          stm32f40x-gpio.ads
   [Ada]          stm32f40x-rcc.ads
Bind
   [gprbind]      main.bexch
   [Ada]          main.ali
Link
   [link]         main.adb

After compilation the build folder has the following files:

 build
 ├── b__main.adb
 ├── b__main.ads
 ├── b__main.ali
 ├── b__main.o
 ├── main
 ├── main.adb.stderr
 ├── main.adb.stdout
 ├── main.ali
 ├── main.bexch
 ├── main.o
 ├── stm32f40x.ads.stderr
 ├── stm32f40x.ads.stdout
 ├── stm32f40x.ali
 ├── stm32f40x-gpio.ads.stderr
 ├── stm32f40x-gpio.ads.stdout
 ├── stm32f40x-gpio.ali
 ├── stm32f40x-gpio.o
 ├── stm32f40x.o
 ├── stm32f40x-rcc.ads.stderr
 ├── stm32f40x-rcc.ads.stdout
 ├── stm32f40x-rcc.ali
 └── stm32f40x-rcc.o

I won’t explain the file extensions today, because I think it’s irrelevant right now, but the executable is main.

$ readelf -h main
ELF Header:
  Magic:   7f 45 4c 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
  Class:                             ELF32
  Data:                              2s complement, little endian
  Version:                           1 (current)
  OS/ABI:                            UNIX - System V
  ABI Version:                       0
  Type:                              EXEC (Executable file)
  Machine:                           ARM
  Version:                           0x1
  Entry point address:               0x8004899
  Start of program headers:          52 (bytes into file)
  Start of section headers:          496068 (bytes into file)
  Flags:                             0x5000400, Version5 EABI, hard-float ABI
  Size of this header:               52 (bytes)
  Size of program headers:           32 (bytes)
  Number of program headers:         3
  Size of section headers:           40 (bytes)
  Number of section headers:         21
  Section header string table index: 18

Final thoughts

So far it seems easier to understand and work than C projects, mainly because of the verbosity of the language and tools. However, this is just the beginning let’s see how far can I go with this.