Re: Why not gnat Ada in gcc?

[Corey Minyard <minyard at acm dot org>]

dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes:

> <<Configure GNAT to produce java byte code and let it compile itself:
> JGNAT.
> 
> This (and any binary produced by JGNAT) can be executed in a JVM or
> directly on the host using GCC´s java front end:
> >>
> 
> This might work with a lot of fiddling, certainly no one has tried it,
> but more straightforward is to pick up an initial binary from cs.nyu.edu
> (or some mirror site), and then bootstrap, or do a cross compile, 
> depending on the environnment.
> 
> It is interesting that initially we were worried about the issue of
> GNAT needing GNAT to compile, but in fact the impressive capabilities
> for building cross compilers in gcc has meant that it is in practice
> very easy for us and for others to move gcc to other machines (quite
> a few ports were done by volunteers with no help from us, including
> Mac, DOS, Amiga, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and others).
> 

Indeed this is true.  I did a cross-compile from Linux x86 to LinuxPPC
a few years back.  It was a small pain, but it really wasn't that bad
and it only has to be done once.  Unfortunately, current LinuxPPC is
unable to use the older compilers that GNAT is currently supported on,
so I no longer have a working compiler on my machine.  So another
cross-compile will be required.  But I'm willing to do it when the
time comes.

Corey