Re: Ada support

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Vadim, Tommi,

* Tommi Mäkitalo wrote on Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 03:55:58PM CET:
> Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 14:02 schrieb Vadim Godunko:
> >
> > We are want to add Ada (GNAT Pro and GCC GNAT) support to automake. We
> > are have corresponding patch but not sure is it right. So, can you
> > please provide documentation about adding support for new languages into
> > autoconf/automake/libtools?

Post the patch.  If it's good, and you're ok with copyright assignment,
and Alexandre likes, it, too, then it will find its way into Automake.

If it has issues, we may be able to point them out.  But it may take a
few days.

> I'm not really a automake-expert - just a user, but I would like to see your 
> code. I have a similar problem.
> 
> I have created a web-application-server with a template-language for c++ 
> called ecpp, which uses a precompiler to generate cpp-files out of 
> ecpp-files. Until now I have used a custom-make-rule, but I'm looking for a 
> way to integrate it better with automake. It would be great, if I could just 
> enumerate my ecpp-files to generate a plugin-library for tntnet.

Unless there is a good reason to include support for this into Automake
proper, you have a slightly different problem: how can Automake be
extended from the outside? 

I agree that it would be quite useful to have something like this.  I
remember other users ask for this, and even some floating patches, which
have never been addressed AFAIR.  What I don't remember is how generic
and good those patches were.

> Another problem I have are dependencies. Ecpp has es include-statement. The 
> ecpp-compiler ecppc supports generating make-dependancies like gcc with -M. 
> It would be great, if I can teach depcomp about this.
> 
> I looked at depcomp, but it looks like a monolithic script. What do you think 
> about some plugin-mechanism for depcomp to teach depcomp about other 
> programs, which generate dependencies?

Hmm.  Making depcomp more complex is not such a great idea.  It is
executed in a hot path (once for every compilation), and should be as
quickly as possible.  If your ecpp can be made to work similarly to one
of the already-given compilers, then it would not be difficult.  But
again it would be more important to support languages which are both
widely used and commonly available (such as Ada).

Cheers,
Ralf