port install gnat-gcc

[Boey Maun Suang]

On 13/06/2009, at 8:54 PM, Martin Krischik wrote:

> That is strange as it is one of the three the offical releases of  
> GNAT:
> GNAT GPL (the free beer version), GNAT GAP (the accademic version) and
> GNAT PRO (the fully supported version).
>
> Beginners should consider GNAT GPL - gnat-gcc in MacPorts is more for
> advaned users. Also GNAT GPL 2009 now comes with an 64 bit compiler.
> That is pretty cool.

Just a couple of quick notes on the various GNAT versions that might  
be useful to know:

1. GNAT GAP is only available on application to professors/lecturers  
at accredited tertiary education institutions for the purposes of  
teaching;
2. GNAT GPL requires that any software compiled with it be released  
under GPLv3, while software compiled with the Ada compiler in GCC can  
be released under non-GPL licences;
3. GNAT GPL is a superset of the GCC Ada compiler -- the Ada support  
in GCC is made available by AdaCore under a modified GPL licence that  
allows binaries compiled with it to be released under non-GPL  
licences, whereas software compiled with GNAT GPL links to AdaCore  
libraries that are GPL-licensed (this is the reason for point 2 above);
4. GNAT GPL on Mac OS X is currently available for 32-bit and 64-bit  
PowerPC and 64-bit Intel (x86_64), but not 32-bit Intel (i386), while  
the GCC Ada compiler is should run on all four architectures;

> There is only one version if GNAT for MacPorts so there is nothing to
> update.

If it's of any interest to anyone, I've been having a go at creating a  
port that builds in the recommended way by downloading a bootstrap  
compiler and uses that to build GCC with Ada support, as the ghc port  
does.  (Because of the way that GCC builds and installs itself with  
absolute path references, the only way that I can see to get that to  
work would be to have the bootstrap built for installation into a  
temporary subdirectory of /var/tmp, have that build and install GCC  
with Ada support on the local machine, and then delete the bootstrap  
compiler -- though that may mean that it won't work with trace mode on).

I'm in the middle of exams right now, so I won't have much time to  
work on it until the end of the month, but I'd be happy to talk to you  
about it, either in macports-dev or off-list.

Kind regards,


Maun Suang

-- 
Boey Maun Suang
Email: boeyms at macports dot org