1.4 A Note to Readers of Previous Versions of the Manual

In early 2015 the GNAT manuals were transitioned to the reStructuredText (rst) / Sphinx documentation generator technology. During that process the GNAT User’s Guide was reorganized so that related topics would be described together in the same chapter or appendix. Here’s a summary of the major changes realized in the new document structure.

• * The GNAT Compilation Model has been extended so that it now covers the following material:
  • - The gnatname, gnatkr, and gnatchop tools
  • - Configuration Pragmas
  • - GNAT and Libraries
  • - Conditional Compilation including Preprocessing with gnatprep and Integrated Preprocessing
  • - Generating Ada Bindings for C and C++ headers
  • - Using GNAT Files with External Tools
• * Building Executable Programs with GNAT is a new chapter consolidating the following content:
  • - Building with gnatmake
  • - Compiling with gcc
  • - Binding with gnatbind
  • - Linking with gnatlink
  • - Using the GNU make Utility
• * GNAT Utility Programs is a new chapter consolidating the information about several GNAT tools:
  • - The File Cleanup Utility gnatclean
  • - The GNAT Library Browser gnatls
  • - The Cross-Referencing Tools gnatxref and gnatfind
  • - The Ada to HTML Converter gnathtml
• * GNAT and Program Execution is a new chapter consolidating the following:
  • - Running and Debugging Ada Programs
  • - Profiling
  • - Improving Performance
  • - Overflow Check Handling in GNAT
  • - Performing Dimensionality Analysis in GNAT
  • - Stack Related Facilities
  • - Memory Management Issues
• * Platform-Specific Information is a new appendix consolidating the following:
  • - Run-Time Libraries
  • - Microsoft Windows Topics
  • - Mac OS Topics
• * The `Compatibility and Porting Guide' appendix has been moved to the GNAT Reference Manual. It now includes a section `Writing Portable Fixed-Point Declarations' which was previously a separate chapter in the GNAT User’s Guide.