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This chapter describes GNAT's Project Manager, a facility that allows you to manage complex builds involving a number of source files, directories, and options for different system configurations. In particular, project files allow you to specify:
Project files are written in a syntax close to that of Ada, using familiar notions such as packages, context clauses, declarations, default values, assignments, and inheritance (see Project File Reference).
Project files can be built hierarchically from other project files, simplifying complex system integration and project reuse (see Organizing Projects into Subsystems).
Several tools support project files, generally in addition to specifying the information on the command line itself). They share common switches to control the loading of the project (in particular -Pprojectfile and -Xvbl=value).
The Project Manager supports a wide range of development strategies, for systems of all sizes. Here are some typical practices that are easily handled:
all OS dependencies in a small number of implementation units.
Project files can be used to achieve some of the effects of a source versioning system (for example, defining separate projects for the different sets of sources that comprise different releases) but the Project Manager is independent of any source configuration management tool that might be used by the developers.
The various sections below introduce the different concepts related to projects. Each section starts with examples and use cases, and then goes into the details of related project file capabilities.
In its simplest form, a unique project is used to build a single executable. This section concentrates on such a simple setup. Later sections will extend this basic model to more complex setups.
The following concepts are the foundation of project files, and will be further detailed later in this documentation. They are summarized here as a reference.
Builder, Compiler, Binder,
and Linker. See Packages.
foo.c is typically the name of a C source file;
bar.ads or bar.1.ada are two common naming conventions for a
file containing an Ada spec. A compilation unit is often composed of a main
source file and potentially several auxiliary ones, such as header files in C.
The naming conventions can be user defined See Naming Schemes, and will
drive the builder to call the appropriate compiler for the given source file.
Source files are searched for in the source directories associated with the
project through the Source_Dirs attribute. By default, all the files (in
these source directories) following the naming conventions associated with the
declared languages are considered to be part of the project. It is also
possible to limit the list of source files using the Source_Files or
Source_List_File attributes. Note that those last two attributes only
accept basenames with no directory information.
The following subsections introduce gradually all the attributes of interest for simple build needs. Here is the simple setup that will be used in the following examples.
The Ada source files pack.ads, pack.adb, and proc.adb are in
the common/ directory. The file proc.adb contains an Ada main
subprogram Proc that withs package Pack. We want to compile
these source files with the switch
-O2, and put the resulting files in
the directory obj/.
common/
pack.ads
pack.adb
proc.adb
common/release/
proc.ali, proc.o pack.ali, pack.o
Our project is to be called Build. The name of the file is the name of the project (case-insensitive) with the .gpr extension, therefore the project file name is build.gpr. This is not mandatory, but a warning is issued when this convention is not followed.
This is a very simple example, and as stated above, a single project file is enough for it. We will thus create a new file, that for now should contain the following code:
project Build is
end Build;
When you create a new project, the first thing to describe is how to find the corresponding source files. This is the only settings that are needed by all the tools that will use this project (builder, compiler, binder and linker for the compilation, IDEs to edit the source files,...).
First step is to declare the source directories, which are the directories to be searched to find source files. In the case of the example, the common directory is the only source directory.
There are several ways of defining source directories:
The syntax for directories is platform specific. For portability, however, the project manager will always properly translate UNIX-like path names to the native format of specific platform. For instance, when the same project file is to be used both on Unix and Windows, "/" should be used as the directory separator rather than "\".
It is often desirable to remove, from the source directories, directory subtrees rooted at some subdirectories. An example is the subdirectories created by a Version Control System such as Subversion that creates directory subtrees rooted at subdirectories ".svn". To do that, attribute Ignore_Source_Sub_Dirs can be used. It specifies the list of simple file names for the roots of these undesirable directory subtrees.
for Source_Dirs use ("./**");
for Ignore_Source_Sub_Dirs use (".svn");
When applied to the simple example, and because we generally prefer to have the project file at the toplevel directory rather than mixed with the sources, we will create the following file
build.gpr
project Build is
for Source_Dirs use ("common"); -- <<<<
end Build;
Once source directories have been specified, one may need to indicate source files of interest. By default, all source files present in the source directories are considered by the project manager. When this is not desired, it is possible to specify the list of sources to consider explicitly. In such a case, only source file base names are indicated and not their absolute or relative path names. The project manager is in charge of locating the specified source files in the specified source directories.
Since the project manager was initially developed for Ada environments, the default language is usually Ada and the above project file is complete: it defines without ambiguity the sources composing the project: that is to say, all the sources in subdirectory "common" for the default language (Ada) using the default naming convention.
However, when compiling a multi-language application, or a pure C application, the project manager must be told which languages are of interest, which is done by setting the Languages attribute to a list of strings, each of which is the name of a language. Tools like gnatmake only know about Ada, while other tools like gprbuild know about many more languages such as C, C++, Fortran, assembly and others can be added dynamically.
Even when using only Ada, the default naming might not be suitable. Indeed, how does the project manager recognizes an "Ada file" from any other file? Project files can describe the naming scheme used for source files, and override the default (see Naming Schemes). The default is the standard GNAT extension (.adb for bodies and .ads for specs), which is what is used in our example, explaining why no naming scheme is explicitly specified. See Naming Schemes.
Source_Files
In some cases, source directories might contain files that should not be
included in a project. One can specify the explicit list of file names to
be considered through the Source_Files attribute.
When this attribute is defined, instead of looking at every file in the
source directories, the project manager takes only those names into
consideration reports errors if they cannot be found in the source
directories or does not correspond to the naming scheme.
(). Alternatively,
Source_Dirs can be set to the empty list, with the same
result.
Source_List_File
If there is a great number of files, it might be more convenient to use
the attribute Source_List_File, which specifies the full path of a file.
This file must contain a list of source file names (one per line, no
directory information) that are searched as if they had been defined
through Source_Files. Such a file can easily be created through
external tools.
A warning is issued if both attributes Source_Files and
Source_List_File are given explicit values. In this case, the
attribute Source_Files prevails.
Excluded_Source_Files
Specifying an explicit list of files is not always convenient.It might be
more convenient to use the default search rules with specific exceptions.
This can be done thanks to the attribute Excluded_Source_Files
(or its synonym Locally_Removed_Files).
Its value is the list of file names that should not be taken into account.
This attribute is often used when extending a project,
See Project Extension. A similar attribute
Excluded_Source_List_File plays the same
role but takes the name of file containing file names similarly to
Source_List_File.
In most simple cases, such as the above example, the default source file search
behavior provides the expected result, and we do not need to add anything after
setting Source_Dirs. The project manager automatically finds
pack.ads, pack.adb and proc.adb as source files of the
project.
Note that by default a warning is issued when a project has no sources attached to it and this is not explicitly indicated in the project file.
If the order of the source directories is known statically, that is if
"/**" is not used in the string list Source_Dirs, then there may
be several files with the same source file name sitting in different
directories of the project. In this case, only the file in the first directory
is considered as a source of the project and the others are hidden. If
"/**" is used in the string list Source_Dirs, it is an error
to have several files with the same source file name in the same directory
"/**" subtree, since there would be an ambiguity as to which one should
be used. However, two files with the same source file name may exist in two
single directories or directory subtrees. In this case, the one in the first
directory or directory subtree is a source of the project.
If there are two sources in different directories of the same "/**"
subtree, one way to resolve the problem is to exclude the directory of the
file that should not be used as a source of the project.
The next step when writing a project is to indicate where the compiler should put the object files. In fact, the compiler and other tools might create several different kind of files (for GNAT, there is the object file and the ALI file for instance). One of the important concepts in projects is that most tools may consider source directories as read-only and do not attempt to create new or temporary files there. Instead, all files are created in the object directory. It is of course not true for project-aware IDEs, whose purpose it is to create the source files.
The object directory is specified through the Object_Dir attribute.
Its value is the path to the object directory, either absolute or
relative to the directory containing the project file. This
directory must already exist and be readable and writable, although
some tools have a switch to create the directory if needed (See
the switch -p for gnatmake
and gprbuild).
If the attribute Object_Dir is not specified, it defaults to
the project directory, that is the directory containing the project file.
For our example, we can specify the object dir in this way:
project Build is
for Source_Dirs use ("common");
for Object_Dir use "obj"; -- <<<<
end Build;
As mentioned earlier, there is a single object directory per project. As a result, if you have an existing system where the object files are spread in several directories, you can either move all of them into the same directory if you want to build it with a single project file, or study the section on subsystems (see Organizing Projects into Subsystems) to see how each separate object directory can be associated with one of the subsystem constituting the application.
When the linker is called, it usually creates an executable. By default, this executable is placed in the object directory of the project. It might be convenient to store it in its own directory.
This can be done through the Exec_Dir attribute, which, like
Object_Dir contains a single absolute or relative path and must point to
an existing and writable directory, unless you ask the tool to create it on
your behalf. When not specified, It defaults to the object directory and
therefore to the project file's directory if neither Object_Dir nor
Exec_Dir was specified.
In the case of the example, let's place the executable in the root of the hierarchy, ie the same directory as build.gpr. Hence the project file is now
project Build is
for Source_Dirs use ("common");
for Object_Dir use "obj";
for Exec_Dir use "."; -- <<<<
end Build;
In the previous section, executables were mentioned. The project manager needs
to be taught what they are. In a project file, an executable is indicated by
pointing to source file of the main subprogram. In C this is the file that
contains the main function, and in Ada the file that contains the main
unit.
There can be any number of such main files within a given project, and thus several executables can be built in the context of a single project file. Of course, one given executable might not (and in fact will not) need all the source files referenced by the project. As opposed to other build environments such as makefile, one does not need to specify the list of dependencies of each executable, the project-aware builders knows enough of the semantics of the languages to build ands link only the necessary elements.
The list of main files is specified via the Main attribute. It contains a list of file names (no directories). If a project defines this attribute, it is not necessary to identify main files on the command line when invoking a builder, and editors like GPS will be able to create extra menus to spawn or debug the corresponding executables.
project Build is
for Source_Dirs use ("common");
for Object_Dir use "obj";
for Exec_Dir use ".";
for Main use ("proc.adb"); -- <<<<
end Build;
If this attribute is defined in the project, then spawning the builder with a command such as
gnatmake -Pbuild
automatically builds all the executables corresponding to the files listed in the Main attribute. It is possible to specify one or more executables on the command line to build a subset of them.
We now have a project file that fully describes our environment, and can be used to build the application with a simple gnatmake command as seen in the previous section. In fact, the empty project we showed immediately at the beginning (with no attribute at all) could already fulfill that need if it was put in the common directory.
Of course, we always want more control. This section will show you how to specify the compilation switches that the various tools involved in the building of the executable should use.
Since source names and locations are described into the project file, it is not necessary to use switches on the command line for this purpose (switches such as -I for gcc). This removes a major source of command line length overflow. Clearly, the builders will have to communicate this information one way or another to the underlying compilers and tools they call but they usually use response files for this and thus should not be subject to command line overflows.
Several tools are participating to the creation of an executable: the compiler produces object files from the source files; the binder (in the Ada case) creates an source file that takes care, among other things, of elaboration issues and global variables initialization; and the linker gathers everything into a single executable that users can execute. All these tools are known by the project manager and will be called with user defined switches from the project files. However, we need to introduce a new project file concept to express which switches to be used for any of the tools involved in the build.
A project file is subdivided into zero or more packages, each of which contains the attributes specific to one tool (or one set of tools). Project files use an Ada-like syntax for packages. Package names permitted in project files are restricted to a predefined set (see Packages), and the contents of packages are limited to a small set of constructs and attributes (see Attributes).
Our example project file can be extended with the following empty packages. At this stage, they could all be omitted since they are empty, but they show which packages would be involved in the build process.
project Build is
for Source_Dirs use ("common");
for Object_Dir use "obj";
for Exec_Dir use ".";
for Main use ("proc.adb");
package Builder is --<<< for gnatmake and gprbuild
end Builder;
package Compiler is --<<< for the compiler
end Compiler;
package Binder is --<<< for the binder
end Binder;
package Linker is --<<< for the linker
end Linker;
end Build;
Let's first examine the compiler switches. As stated in the initial description of the example, we want to compile all files with -O2. This is a compiler switch, although it is usual, on the command line, to pass it to the builder which then passes it to the compiler. It is recommended to use directly the right package, which will make the setup easier to understand for other people.
Several attributes can be used to specify the switches:
In this example, we want to compile all Ada source files with the switch
-O2, and the resulting project file is as follows
(only the Compiler package is shown):
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada") use ("-O2");
end Compiler;
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O2");
for Switches ("proc.adb")
use ("-O0");
end Compiler;
Switches may take a pattern as an index, such as in:
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O2");
for Switches ("pkg*")
use ("-O0");
end Compiler;
Sources pkg.adb and pkg-child.adb would be compiled with -O0, not -O2.
Switches can also be given a language name as index instead of a file
name in which case it has the same semantics as Default_Switches.
However, indexes with wild cards are never valid for language name.
pragma Restrictions (No_Tasking). These pragmas will be
used for all the sources of the project.
The switches for the other tools are defined in a similar manner through the Default_Switches and Switches attributes, respectively in the Builder package (for gnatmake and gprbuild), the Binder package (binding Ada executables) and the Linker package (for linking executables).
Now that our project files are written, let's build our executable. Here is the command we would use from the command line:
gnatmake -Pbuild
This will automatically build the executables specified through the Main attribute: for each, it will compile or recompile the sources for which the object file does not exist or is not up-to-date; it will then run the binder; and finally run the linker to create the executable itself.
gnatmake only knows how to handle Ada files. By using
gprbuild as a builder, you could automatically manage C files the
same way: create the file utils.c in the common directory,
set the attribute Languages to "(Ada, C)", and run
gprbuild -Pbuild
Gprbuild knows how to recompile the C files and will recompile them only if one of their dependencies has changed. No direct indication on how to build the various elements is given in the project file, which describes the project properties rather than a set of actions to be executed. Here is the invocation of gprbuild when building a multi-language program:
$ gprbuild -Pbuild
gcc -c proc.adb
gcc -c pack.adb
gcc -c utils.c
gprbind proc
...
gcc proc.o -o proc
Notice the three steps described earlier:
The default output of GPRbuild's execution is kept reasonably simple and easy
to understand. In particular, some of the less frequently used commands are not
shown, and some parameters are abbreviated. So it is not possible to rerun the
effect of the gprbuild command by cut-and-pasting its output.
GPRbuild's option -v provides a much more verbose output which includes,
among other information, more complete compilation, post-compilation and link
commands.
By default, the executable name corresponding to a main file is computed from the main source file name. Through the attribute Builder.Executable, it is possible to change this default.
For instance, instead of building proc (or proc.exe on Windows), we could configure our project file to build "proc1" (resp proc1.exe) with the following addition:
project Build is
... -- same as before
package Builder is
for Executable ("proc.adb") use "proc1";
end Builder
end Build;
Attribute Executable_Suffix, when specified, may change the suffix
of the executable files, when no attribute Executable applies:
its value replace the platform-specific executable suffix.
The default executable suffix is empty on UNIX and ".exe" on Windows.
It is also possible to change the name of the produced executable by using the
command line switch -o. When several mains are defined in the project,
it is not possible to use the -o switch and the only way to change the
names of the executable is provided by Attributes Executable and
Executable_Suffix.
To illustrate some other project capabilities, here is a slightly more complex project using similar sources and a main program in C:
project C_Main is
for Languages use ("Ada", "C");
for Source_Dirs use ("common");
for Object_Dir use "obj";
for Main use ("main.c");
package Compiler is
C_Switches := ("-pedantic");
for Default_Switches ("C") use C_Switches;
for Default_Switches ("Ada") use ("-gnaty");
for Switches ("main.c") use C_Switches & ("-g");
end Compiler;
end C_Main;
This project has many similarities with the previous one.
As expected, its Main attribute now refers to a C source.
The attribute Exec_Dir is now omitted, thus the resulting
executable will be put in the directory obj.
The most noticeable difference is the use of a variable in the Compiler package to store settings used in several attributes. This avoids text duplication, and eases maintenance (a single place to modify if we want to add new switches for C files). We will revisit the use of variables in the context of scenarios (see Scenarios in Projects).
In this example, we see how the file main.c can be compiled with
the switches used for all the other C files, plus -g.
In this specific situation the use of a variable could have been
replaced by a reference to the Default_Switches attribute:
for Switches ("c_main.c") use Compiler'Default_Switches ("C") & ("-g");
Note the tick (') used to refer to attributes defined in a package.
Here is the output of the GPRbuild command using this project:
$gprbuild -Pc_main
gcc -c -pedantic -g main.c
gcc -c -gnaty proc.adb
gcc -c -gnaty pack.adb
gcc -c -pedantic utils.c
gprbind main.bexch
...
gcc main.o -o main
The default switches for Ada sources, the default switches for C sources (in the compilation of lib.c), and the specific switches for main.c have all been taken into account.
Sometimes an Ada software system is ported from one compilation environment to another (say GNAT), and the file are not named using the default GNAT conventions. Instead of changing all the file names, which for a variety of reasons might not be possible, you can define the relevant file naming scheme in the Naming package of your project file.
The naming scheme has two distinct goals for the project manager: it allows finding of source files when searching in the source directories, and given a source file name it makes it possible to guess the associated language, and thus the compiler to use.
Note that the use by the Ada compiler of pragmas Source_File_Name is not supported when using project files. You must use the features described in this paragraph. You can however specify other configuration pragmas.
The following attributes can be defined in package Naming:
"lowercase" (the default if
unspecified), "uppercase" or "mixedcase". It describes the
casing of file names with regards to the Ada unit name. Given an Ada unit
My_Unit, the file name will respectively be my_unit.adb (lowercase),
MY_UNIT.ADB (uppercase) or My_Unit.adb (mixedcase).
On Windows, file names are case insensitive, so this attribute is
irrelevant.
"-" so that a unit
Parent.Child is expected to be found in the file
parent-child.adb. The replacement string must satisfy the following
requirements to avoid ambiguities in the naming scheme:
'.' except if the entire string
is "."
If the value of the attribute is the empty string, it indicates to the
Project Manager that the only specifications/header files for the language
are those specified with attributes Spec or
Specification_Exceptions.
If Spec_Suffix ("Ada") is not specified, then the default is
".ads".
A non empty value must satisfy the following requirements:
Dot_Replacement is a single dot, then it cannot include
more than one dot.
For each language of a project, one of these two attributes need to be specified, either in the project itself or in the configuration project file.
If the value of the attribute is the empty string, it indicates to the
Project Manager that the only source files for the language
are those specified with attributes Body or
Implementation_Exceptions.
These attributes must satisfy the same requirements as Spec_Suffix.
In addition, they must be different from any of the values in
Spec_Suffix.
If Body_Suffix ("Ada") is not specified, then the default is
".adb".
If Body_Suffix ("Ada") and Spec_Suffix ("Ada") end with the
same string, then a file name that ends with the longest of these two
suffixes will be a body if the longest suffix is Body_Suffix ("Ada")
or a spec if the longest suffix is Spec_Suffix ("Ada").
If the suffix does not start with a '.', a file with a name exactly equal to
the suffix will also be part of the project (for instance if you define the
suffix as Makefile.in, a file called Makefile.in will be part
of the project. This capability is usually not interesting when building.
However, it might become useful when a project is also used to
find the list of source files in an editor, like the GNAT Programming System
(GPS).
Body_Suffix ("Ada").
The value of this attribute cannot be the empty string.
Otherwise, the same rules apply as for the
Body_Suffix attribute. The only accepted index is "Ada".
Spec can be used to define the source file name for a
given Ada compilation unit's spec. The index is the literal name of the Ada
unit (case insensitive). The value is the literal base name of the file that
contains this unit's spec (case sensitive or insensitive depending on the
operating system). This attribute allows the definition of exceptions to the
general naming scheme, in case some files do not follow the usual
convention.
When a source file contains several units, the relative position of the unit can be indicated. The first unit in the file is at position 1
for Spec ("MyPack.MyChild") use "mypack.mychild.spec";
for Spec ("top") use "foo.a" at 1;
for Spec ("foo") use "foo.a" at 2;
For example, the following package models the Apex file naming rules:
package Naming is
for Casing use "lowercase";
for Dot_Replacement use ".";
for Spec_Suffix ("Ada") use ".1.ada";
for Body_Suffix ("Ada") use ".2.ada";
end Naming;
After building an application or a library it is often required to install it into the development environment. For instance this step is required if the library is to be used by another application. The gprinstall tool provides an easy way to install libraries, executable or object code generated during the build. The Install package can be used to change the default locations.
The following attributes can be defined in package Install:
true
(default) or false.
For large projects the compilation time can become a limitation in the development cycle. To cope with that, GPRbuild supports distributed compilation.
The following attributes can be defined in package Remote:
A subsystem is a coherent part of the complete system to be built. It is represented by a set of sources and one single object directory. A system can be composed of a single subsystem when it is simple as we have seen in the first section. Complex systems are usually composed of several interdependent subsystems. A subsystem is dependent on another subsystem if knowledge of the other one is required to build it, and in particular if visibility on some of the sources of this other subsystem is required. Each subsystem is usually represented by its own project file.
In this section, the previous example is being extended. Let's assume some
sources of our Build project depend on other sources.
For instance, when building a graphical interface, it is usual to depend upon
a graphical library toolkit such as GtkAda. Furthermore, we also need
sources from a logging module we had previously written.
GtkAda comes with its own project file (appropriately called gtkada.gpr), and we will assume we have already built a project called logging.gpr for the logging module. With the information provided so far in build.gpr, building the application would fail with an error indicating that the gtkada and logging units that are relied upon by the sources of this project cannot be found.
This is easily solved by adding the following with clauses at the beginning of our project:
with "gtkada.gpr";
with "a/b/logging.gpr";
project Build is
... -- as before
end Build;
When such a project is compiled, gnatmake will automatically
check the other projects and recompile their sources when needed. It will also
recompile the sources from Build when needed, and finally create the
executable. In some cases, the implementation units needed to recompile a
project are not available, or come from some third-party and you do not want to
recompile it yourself. In this case, the attribute Externally_Built to
"true" can be set, indicating to the builder that this project can be assumed
to be up-to-date, and should not be considered for recompilation. In Ada, if
the sources of this externally built project were compiled with another version
of the compiler or with incompatible options, the binder will issue an error.
The project's with clause has several effects. It provides source
visibility between projects during the compilation process. It also guarantees
that the necessary object files from Logging and GtkAda are
available when linking Build.
As can be seen in this example, the syntax for importing projects is similar
to the syntax for importing compilation units in Ada. However, project files
use literal strings instead of names, and the with clause identifies
project files rather than packages.
Each literal string after with is the path
(absolute or relative) to a project file. The .gpr extension is
optional, although we recommend adding it. If no extension is specified,
and no project file with the .gpr extension is found, then
the file is searched for exactly as written in the with clause,
that is with no extension.
As mentioned above, the path after a with has to be a literal
string, and you cannot use concatenation, or lookup the value of external
variables to change the directories from which a project is loaded.
A solution if you need something like this is to use aggregate projects
(see Aggregate Projects).
When a relative path or a base name is used, the project files are searched relative to each of the directories in the project path. This path includes all the directories found with the following algorithm, in that order, as soon as a matching file is found, the search stops:
In our example, gtkada.gpr is found in the predefined directory if it was installed at the same root as GNAT.
Some tools also support extending the project path from the command line, generally through the -aP. You can see the value of the project path by using the gnatls -v command.
Any symbolic link will be fully resolved in the directory of the importing project file before the imported project file is examined.
Any source file in the imported project can be used by the sources of the
importing project, transitively.
Thus if A imports B, which imports C, the sources of
A may depend on the sources of C, even if A does not
import C explicitly. However, this is not recommended, because if
and when B ceases to import C, some sources in A will
no longer compile. gprbuild has a switch --no-indirect-imports
that will report such indirect dependencies.
One very important aspect of a project hierarchy is that
a given source can only belong to one project (otherwise the project manager
would not know which settings apply to it and when to recompile it). It means
that different project files do not usually share source directories or
when they do, they need to specify precisely which project owns which sources
using attribute Source_Files or equivalent. By contrast, 2 projects
can each own a source with the same base file name as long as they live in
different directories. The latter is not true for Ada Sources because of the
correlation between source files and Ada units.
Cyclic dependencies are mostly forbidden:
if A imports B (directly or indirectly) then B
is not allowed to import A. However, there are cases when cyclic
dependencies would be beneficial. For these cases, another form of import
between projects exists: the limited with. A project A that
imports a project B with a straight with may also be imported,
directly or indirectly, by B through a limited with.
The difference between straight with and limited with is that
the name of a project imported with a limited with cannot be used in the
project importing it. In particular, its packages cannot be renamed and
its variables cannot be referred to.
with "b.gpr";
with "c.gpr";
project A is
For Exec_Dir use B'Exec_Dir; -- ok
end A;
limited with "a.gpr"; -- Cyclic dependency: A -> B -> A
project B is
For Exec_Dir use A'Exec_Dir; -- not ok
end B;
with "d.gpr";
project C is
end C;
limited with "a.gpr"; -- Cyclic dependency: A -> C -> D -> A
project D is
For Exec_Dir use A'Exec_Dir; -- not ok
end D;
When building an application, it is common to have similar needs in several of the projects corresponding to the subsystems under construction. For instance, they will all have the same compilation switches.
As seen before (see Tools Options in Project Files), setting compilation
switches for all sources of a subsystem is simple: it is just a matter of
adding a Compiler.Default_Switches attribute to each project files with
the same value. Of course, that means duplication of data, and both places need
to be changed in order to recompile the whole application with different
switches. It can become a real problem if there are many subsystems and thus
many project files to edit.
There are two main approaches to avoiding this duplication:
project Logging is
package Compiler is
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O2");
end Compiler;
package Binder is
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-E");
end Binder;
end Logging;
with "logging.gpr";
project Build is
package Compiler renames Logging.Compiler;
package Binder is
for Switches ("Ada") use Logging.Binder'Switches ("Ada");
end Binder;
end Build;
The solution used for Compiler gets the same value for all
attributes of the package, but you cannot modify anything from the
package (adding extra switches or some exceptions). The second
version is more flexible, but more verbose.
If you need to refer to the value of a variable in an imported project, rather than an attribute, the syntax is similar but uses a "." rather than an apostrophe. For instance:
with "imported";
project Main is
Var1 := Imported.Var;
end Main;
abstract project Shared is
for Source_Files use (); -- no sources
package Compiler is
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O2");
end Compiler;
end Shared;
with "shared.gpr";
project Logging is
package Compiler renames Shared.Compiler;
end Logging;
with "shared.gpr";
project Build is
package Compiler renames Shared.Compiler;
end Build;
As for the first example, we could have chosen to set the attributes
one by one rather than to rename a package. The reason we explicitly
indicate that Shared has no sources is so that it can be created
in any directory and we are sure it shares no sources with Build
or Logging, which of course would be invalid.
Note the additional use of the abstract qualifier in shared.gpr. This qualifier is optional, but helps convey the message that we do not intend this project to have sources (see Qualified Projects for more qualifiers).
We have already seen many examples of attributes used to specify a special option of one of the tools involved in the build process. Most of those attributes are project specific. That it to say, they only affect the invocation of tools on the sources of the project where they are defined.
There are a few additional attributes that apply to all projects in a hierarchy as long as they are defined on the "main" project. The main project is the project explicitly mentioned on the command-line. The project hierarchy is the "with"-closure of the main project.
Here is a list of commonly used global attributes:
Compiler.Local_Configuration_Pragmas attribute.
Compiler package, which only apply to
the sources of the corresponding project. This attribute is indexed on
the name of the language.
Using such global capabilities is convenient. It can also lead to unexpected behavior. Especially when several subsystems are shared among different main projects and the different global attributes are not compatible. Note that using aggregate projects can be a safer and more powerful replacement to global attributes.
Various aspects of the projects can be modified based on scenarios. These are user-defined modes that change the behavior of a project. Typical examples are the setup of platform-specific compiler options, or the use of a debug and a release mode (the former would activate the generation of debug information, when the second will focus on improving code optimization).
Let's enhance our example to support a debug and a release modes.The issue is to let the user choose what kind of system he is building: use -g as compiler switches in debug mode and -O2 in release mode. We will also setup the projects so that we do not share the same object directory in both modes, otherwise switching from one to the other might trigger more recompilations than needed or mix objects from the 2 modes.
One naive approach is to create two different project files, say build_debug.gpr and build_release.gpr, that set the appropriate attributes as explained in previous sections. This solution does not scale well, because in presence of multiple projects depending on each other, you will also have to duplicate the complete hierarchy and adapt the project files to point to the right copies.
Instead, project files support the notion of scenarios controlled by external values. Such values can come from several sources (in decreasing order of priority):
gnatmake -Pbuild.gpr -Xmode=debug
or gnatmake -Pbuild.gpr -Xmode=release
We now need to get that value in the project. The general form is to use the predefined function external which returns the current value of the external. For instance, we could setup the object directory to point to either obj/debug or obj/release by changing our project to
project Build is
for Object_Dir use "obj/" & external ("mode", "debug");
... -- as before
end Build;
The second parameter to external is optional, and is the default
value to use if "mode" is not set from the command line or the environment.
In order to set the switches according to the different scenarios, other constructs have to be introduced such as typed variables and case constructions.
A typed variable is a variable that can take only a limited number of values, similar to an enumeration in Ada. Such a variable can then be used in a case construction and create conditional sections in the project. The following example shows how this can be done:
project Build is
type Mode_Type is ("debug", "release"); -- all possible values
Mode : Mode_Type := external ("mode", "debug"); -- a typed variable
package Compiler is
case Mode is
when "debug" =>
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-g");
when "release" =>
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O2");
end case;
end Compiler;
end Build;
The project has suddenly grown in size, but has become much more flexible.
Mode_Type defines the only valid values for the mode variable. If
any other value is read from the environment, an error is reported and the
project is considered as invalid.
The Mode variable is initialized with an external value
defaulting to "debug". This default could be omitted and that would
force the user to define the value. Finally, we can use a case construction to set the
switches depending on the scenario the user has chosen.
Most aspects of the projects can depend on scenarios. The notable exception
are project dependencies (with clauses), which may not depend on a scenario.
Scenarios work the same way with project hierarchies: you can either
duplicate a variable similar to Mode in each of the project (as long
as the first argument to external is always the same and the type is
the same), or simply set the variable in the shared.gpr project
(see Sharing Between Projects).
So far, we have seen examples of projects that create executables. However, it is also possible to create libraries instead. A library is a specific type of subsystem where, for convenience, objects are grouped together using system-specific means such as archives or windows DLLs.
Library projects provide a system- and language-independent way of building both static and dynamic libraries. They also support the concept of standalone libraries (SAL) which offers two significant properties: the elaboration (e.g. initialization) of the library is either automatic or very simple; a change in the implementation part of the library implies minimal post-compilation actions on the complete system and potentially no action at all for the rest of the system in the case of dynamic SALs.
There is a restriction on shared library projects: by default, they are only allowed to import other shared library projects. They are not allowed to import non library projects or static library projects.
The GNAT Project Manager takes complete care of the library build, rebuild and installation tasks, including recompilation of the source files for which objects do not exist or are not up to date, assembly of the library archive, and installation of the library (i.e., copying associated source, object and ALI files to the specified location).
Let's enhance our example and transform the logging subsystem into a
library. In order to do so, a few changes need to be made to logging.gpr.
A number of specific attributes needs to be defined: at least Library_Name
and Library_Dir; in addition, a number of other attributes can be used
to specify specific aspects of the library. For readability, it is also
recommended (although not mandatory), to use the qualifier library in
front of the project keyword.
Object_Dir directory. When all sources of a library
are compiled, some of the compilation artifacts, including the library itself,
are copied to the library_dir directory. This directory must exists and be
writable. It must also be different from the object directory so that cleanup
activities in the Library_Dir do not affect recompilation needs.
Here is the new version of logging.gpr that makes it a library:
library project Logging is -- "library" is optional
for Library_Name use "logging"; -- will create "liblogging.a" on Unix
for Object_Dir use "obj";
for Library_Dir use "lib"; -- different from object_dir
end Logging;
Once the above two attributes are defined, the library project is valid and is enough for building a library with default characteristics. Other library-related attributes can be used to change the defaults:
"static", "dynamic" or
"relocatable" (the latter is a synonym for dynamic). It indicates
which kind of library should be built (the default is to build a
static library, that is an archive of object files that can potentially
be linked into a static executable). When the library is set to be dynamic,
a separate image is created that will be loaded independently, usually
at the start of the main program execution. Support for dynamic libraries is
very platform specific, for instance on Windows it takes the form of a DLL
while on GNU/Linux, it is a dynamic elf image whose suffix is usually
.so. Library project files, on the other hand, can be written in
a platform independent way so that the same project file can be used to build
a library on different operating systems.
If you need to build both a static and a dynamic library, it is recommended use two different object directories, since in some cases some extra code needs to be generated for the latter. For such cases, one can either define two different project files, or a single one which uses scenarios to indicate the various kinds of library to be built and their corresponding object_dir.
Library_Dir directory, but as for the executables where we have a
separate Exec_Dir attribute, you might want to put them in a separate
directory since there can be hundreds of them. The same restrictions as for
the Library_Dir attribute apply.
"soname"). If the library file name (built
from the Library_Name) is different from the Library_Version,
then the library file will be a symbolic link to the actual file whose name
will be Library_Version. This follows the usual installation schemes
for dynamic libraries on many Unix systems.
project Logging is
Version := "1";
for Library_Dir use "lib";
for Library_Name use "logging";
for Library_Kind use "dynamic";
for Library_Version use "liblogging.so." & Version;
end Logging;
After the compilation, the directory lib will contain both a libdummy.so.1 library and a symbolic link to it called libdummy.so.
Linker.Switches
defined in the main project. This is useful when a particular subsystem
depends on an external library: adding this dependency as a
Linker_Options in the project of the subsystem is more convenient than
adding it to all the Linker.Switches of the main projects that depend
upon this subsystem.
When the builder detects that a project file is a library project file, it recompiles all sources of the project that need recompilation and rebuild the library if any of the sources have been recompiled. It then groups all object files into a single file, which is a shared or a static library. This library can later on be linked with multiple executables. Note that the use of shard libraries reduces the size of the final executable and can also reduce the memory footprint at execution time when the library is shared among several executables.
It is also possible to build multi-language libraries. When using gprbuild as a builder, multi-language library projects allow naturally the creation of multi-language libraries . gnatmake, does not try to compile non Ada sources. However, when the project is multi-language, it will automatically link all object files found in the object directory, whether or not they were compiled from an Ada source file. This specific behavior does not apply to Ada-only projects which only take into account the objects corresponding to the sources of the project.
A non-library project can import a library project. When the builder is invoked
on the former, the library of the latter is only rebuilt when absolutely
necessary. For instance, if a unit of the
library is not up-to-date but non of the executables need this unit, then the
unit is not recompiled and the library is not reassembled.
For instance, let's assume in our example that logging has the following
sources: log1.ads, log1.adb, log2.ads and
log2.adb. If log1.adb has been modified, then the library
liblogging will be rebuilt when compiling all the sources of
Build only if proc.ads, pack.ads or pack.adb
include a "with Log1".
To ensure that all the sources in the Logging library are
up to date, and that all the sources of Build are also up to date,
the following two commands needs to be used:
gnatmake -Plogging.gpr
gnatmake -Pbuild.gpr
All ALI files will also be copied from the object directory to the library directory. To build executables, gnatmake will use the library rather than the individual object files.
Library projects can also be useful to describe a library that need to be used
but, for some reason, cannot be rebuilt. For instance, it is the case when some
of the library sources are not available. Such library projects need simply to
use the Externally_Built attribute as in the example below:
library project Extern_Lib is
for Languages use ("Ada", "C");
for Source_Dirs use ("lib_src");
for Library_Dir use "lib2";
for Library_Kind use "dynamic";
for Library_Name use "l2";
for Externally_Built use "true"; -- <<<<
end Extern_Lib;
In the case of externally built libraries, the Object_Dir
attribute does not need to be specified because it will never be
used.
The main effect of using such an externally built library project is mostly to
affect the linker command in order to reference the desired library. It can
also be achieved by using Linker.Linker_Options or Linker.Switches
in the project corresponding to the subsystem needing this external library.
This latter method is more straightforward in simple cases but when several
subsystems depend upon the same external library, finding the proper place
for the Linker.Linker_Options might not be easy and if it is
not placed properly, the final link command is likely to present ordering issues.
In such a situation, it is better to use the externally built library project
so that all other subsystems depending on it can declare this dependency thanks
to a project with clause, which in turn will trigger the builder to find
the proper order of libraries in the final link command.
A stand-alone library is a library that contains the necessary code to elaborate the Ada units that are included in the library. A stand-alone library is a convenient way to add an Ada subsystem to a more global system whose main is not in Ada since it makes the elaboration of the Ada part mostly transparent. However, stand-alone libraries are also useful when the main is in Ada: they provide a means for minimizing relinking & redeployment of complex systems when localized changes are made.
The name of a stand-alone library, specified with attribute
Library_Name, must have the syntax of an Ada identifier.
The most prominent characteristic of a stand-alone library is that it offers a
distinction between interface units and implementation units. Only the former
are visible to units outside the library. A stand-alone library project is thus
characterised by a third attribute, usually Library_Interface, in addition
to the two attributes that make a project a Library Project
(Library_Name and Library_Dir). This third attribute may also be
Interfaces. Library_Interface only works when the interface is in Ada
and takes a list of units as parameter. Interfaces works for any supported
language and takes a list of sources as parameter.
Library_Interface. Other sources are
considered implementation units.
for Library_Dir use "lib";
for Library_Name use "loggin";
for Library_Interface use ("lib1", "lib2"); -- unit names
Library_Interface, in which
case, units have to be replaced by source files. For multi-language library
projects, it is the only way to make the project a Stand-Alone Library project
whose interface is not purely Ada.
standard (the default), no or
encapsulated. When standard is used the code to elaborate and
finalize the library is embedded, when encapsulated is used the
library can furthermore only depends on static libraries (including
the GNAT runtime). This attribute can be set to no to make it clear
that the library should not be standalone in which case the
Library_Interface should not defined. Note that this attribute
only applies to shared libraries, so Library_Kind must be set
to dynamic.
for Library_Dir use "lib";
for Library_Name use "loggin";
for Library_Kind use "dynamic";
for Library_Interface use ("lib1", "lib2"); -- unit names
for Library_Standalone use "encapsulated";
In order to include the elaboration code in the stand-alone library, the binder
is invoked on the closure of the library units creating a package whose name
depends on the library name (b~logging.ads/b in the example).
This binder-generated package includes initialization and finalization
procedures whose names depend on the library name (logginginit and
loggingfinal in the example). The object corresponding to this package is
included in the library.
When a non-automatically initialized stand-alone library is used in an
executable, its initialization procedure must be called before any service of
the library is used. When the main subprogram is in Ada, it may mean that the
initialization procedure has to be called during elaboration of another
package.
Library_Interface) are copied to
the library directory. As a consequence, only the interface units may be
imported from Ada units outside of the library. If other units are imported,
the binding phase will fail.
Inline are used, or when there is a generic
units in the spec. This directory cannot point to the object directory or
one of the source directories, but it can point to the library directory,
which is the default value for this attribute.
"autonomous" or "default": exported symbols are not controlled
"compliant": if attribute Library_Reference_Symbol_File
is not defined, then it is equivalent to policy "autonomous". If there
are exported symbols in the reference symbol file that are not in the
object files of the interfaces, the major ID of the library is increased.
If there are symbols in the object files of the interfaces that are not
in the reference symbol file, these symbols are put at the end of the list
in the newly created symbol file and the minor ID is increased.
"controlled": the attribute Library_Reference_Symbol_File must be
defined. The library will fail to build if the exported symbols in the
object files of the interfaces do not match exactly the symbol in the
symbol file.
"restricted": The attribute Library_Symbol_File must be defined.
The library will fail to build if there are symbols in the symbol file that
are not in the exported symbols of the object files of the interfaces.
Additional symbols in the object files are not added to the symbol file.
"direct": The attribute Library_Symbol_File must be defined and
must designate an existing file in the object directory. This symbol file
is passed directly to the underlying linker without any symbol processing.
When using project files, a usable version of the library is created in the
directory specified by the Library_Dir attribute of the library
project file. Thus no further action is needed in order to make use of
the libraries that are built as part of the general application build.
You may want to install a library in a context different from where the library
is built. This situation arises with third party suppliers, who may want
to distribute a library in binary form where the user is not expected to be
able to recompile the library. The simplest option in this case is to provide
a project file slightly different from the one used to build the library, by
using the externally_built attribute. Using Library Projects
Another option is to use gprinstall to install the library in a different context than the build location. A project to use this library is generated automatically by gprinstall which also copy, in the install location, the minimum set of sources needed to use the library. Installation
During development of a large system, it is sometimes necessary to use modified versions of some of the source files, without changing the original sources. This can be achieved through the project extension facility.
Suppose for instance that our example Build project is built every night
for the whole team, in some shared directory. A developer usually need to work
on a small part of the system, and might not want to have a copy of all the
sources and all the object files (mostly because that would require too much
disk space, time to recompile everything). He prefers to be able to override
some of the source files in his directory, while taking advantage of all the
object files generated at night.
Another example can be taken from large software systems, where it is common to have multiple implementations of a common interface; in Ada terms, multiple versions of a package body for the same spec. For example, one implementation might be safe for use in tasking programs, while another might only be used in sequential applications. This can be modeled in GNAT using the concept of project extension. If one project (the “child”) extends another project (the “parent”) then by default all source files of the parent project are inherited by the child, but the child project can override any of the parent's source files with new versions, and can also add new files or remove unnecessary ones. This facility is the project analog of a type extension in object-oriented programming. Project hierarchies are permitted (an extending project may itself be extended), and a project that extends a project can also import other projects.
A third example is that of using project extensions to provide different
versions of the same system. For instance, assume that a Common
project is used by two development branches. One of the branches has now
been frozen, and no further change can be done to it or to Common.
However, the other development branch still needs evolution of Common.
Project extensions provide a flexible solution to create a new version
of a subsystem while sharing and reusing as much as possible from the original
one.
A project extension inherits implicitly all the sources and objects from the
project it extends. It is possible to create a new version of some of the
sources in one of the additional source dirs of the extending project. Those new
versions hide the original versions. Adding new sources or removing existing
ones is also possible. Here is an example on how to extend the project
Build from previous examples:
project Work extends "../bld/build.gpr" is
end Work;
The project after extends is the one being extended. As usual, it can be
specified using an absolute path, or a path relative to any of the directories
in the project path (see Project Dependencies). This project does not
specify source or object directories, so the default value for these attribute
will be used that is to say the current directory (where project Work is
placed). We can already compile that project with
gnatmake -Pwork
If no sources have been placed in the current directory, this command
won't do anything, since this project does not change the
sources it inherited from Build, therefore all the object files
in Build and its dependencies are still valid and are reused
automatically.
Suppose we now want to supply an alternate version of pack.adb
but use the existing versions of pack.ads and proc.adb.
We can create the new file Work's current directory (likely
by copying the one from the Build project and making changes to
it. If new packages are needed at the same time, we simply create
new files in the source directory of the extending project.
When we recompile, gnatmake will now automatically recompile this file (thus creating pack.o in the current directory) and any file that depends on it (thus creating proc.o). Finally, the executable is also linked locally.
Note that we could have obtained the desired behavior using project import
rather than project inheritance. A base project would contain the
sources for pack.ads and proc.adb, and Work would
import base and add pack.adb. In this scenario, base
cannot contain the original version of pack.adb otherwise there would be
2 versions of the same unit in the closure of the project and this is not
allowed. Generally speaking, it is not recommended to put the spec and the
body of a unit in different projects since this affects their autonomy and
reusability.
In a project file that extends another project, it is possible to indicate that an inherited source is not part of the sources of the extending project. This is necessary sometimes when a package spec has been overridden and no longer requires a body: in this case, it is necessary to indicate that the inherited body is not part of the sources of the project, otherwise there will be a compilation error when compiling the spec.
For that purpose, the attribute Excluded_Source_Files is used.
Its value is a list of file names.
It is also possible to use attribute Excluded_Source_List_File.
Its value is the path of a text file containing one file name per
line.
project Work extends "../bld/build.gpr" is
for Source_Files use ("pack.ads");
-- New spec of Pkg does not need a completion
for Excluded_Source_Files use ("pack.adb");
end Work;
All packages that are not declared in the extending project are inherited from
the project being extended, with their attributes, with the exception of
Linker'Linker_Options which is never inherited. In particular, an
extending project retains all the switches specified in the project being
extended.
At the project level, if they are not declared in the extending project, some
attributes are inherited from the project being extended. They are:
Languages, Main (for a root non library project) and
Library_Name (for a project extending a library project)
One of the fundamental restrictions in project extension is the following: A project is not allowed to import directly or indirectly at the same time an extending project and one of its ancestors.
By means of example, consider the following hierarchy of projects.
a.gpr contains package A1
b.gpr, imports a.gpr and contains B1, which depends on A1
c.gpr, imports b.gpr and contains C1, which depends on B1
If we want to locally extend the packages A1 and C1, we need to
create several extending projects:
a_ext.gpr which extends a.gpr, and overrides A1
b_ext.gpr which extends b.gpr and imports a_ext.gpr
c_ext.gpr which extends c.gpr, imports b_ext.gpr and overrides C1
project A_Ext extends "a.gpr" is
for Source_Files use ("a1.adb", "a1.ads");
end A_Ext;
with "a_ext.gpr";
project B_Ext extends "b.gpr" is
end B_Ext;
with "b_ext.gpr";
project C_Ext extends "c.gpr" is
for Source_Files use ("c1.adb");
end C_Ext;
The extension b_ext.gpr is required, even though we are not overriding any of the sources of b.gpr because otherwise c_expr.gpr would import b.gpr which itself knows nothing about a_ext.gpr.
When extending a large system spanning multiple projects, it is often inconvenient to extend every project in the hierarchy that is impacted by a small change introduced in a low layer. In such cases, it is possible to create an implicit extension of entire hierarchy using extends all relationship.
When the project is extended using extends all inheritance, all projects
that are imported by it, both directly and indirectly, are considered virtually
extended. That is, the project manager creates implicit projects
that extend every project in the hierarchy; all these implicit projects do not
control sources on their own and use the object directory of
the "extending all" project.
It is possible to explicitly extend one or more projects in the hierarchy in order to modify the sources. These extending projects must be imported by the "extending all" project, which will replace the corresponding virtual projects with the explicit ones.
When building such a project hierarchy extension, the project manager will ensure that both modified sources and sources in implicit extending projects that depend on them, are recompiled.
Thus, in our example we could create the following projects instead:
a_ext.gpr, extends a.gpr and overrides A1
c_ext.gpr, "extends all" c.gpr, imports a_ext.gpr and overrides C1
project A_Ext extends "a.gpr" is
for Source_Files use ("a1.adb", "a1.ads");
end A_Ext;
with "a_ext.gpr";
project C_Ext extends all "c.gpr" is
for Source_Files use ("c1.adb");
end C_Ext;
When building project c_ext.gpr, the entire modified project space is
considered for recompilation, including the sources of b.gpr that are
impacted by the changes in A1 and C1.
Aggregate projects are an extension of the project paradigm, and are meant to solve a few specific use cases that cannot be solved directly using standard projects. This section will go over a few of these use cases to try to explain what you can use aggregate projects for.
Most often, an application is organized into modules and submodules,
which are very conveniently represented as a project tree or graph
(the root project A withs the projects for each modules (say B and C),
which in turn with projects for submodules.
Very often, modules will build their own executables (for testing purposes for instance), or libraries (for easier reuse in various contexts).
However, if you build your project through gnatmake or gprbuild, using a syntax similar to
gprbuild -PA.gpr
this will only rebuild the main programs of project A, not those of the imported projects B and C. Therefore you have to spawn several gnatmake commands, one per project, to build all executables. This is a little inconvenient, but more importantly is inefficient because gnatmake needs to do duplicate work to ensure that sources are up-to-date, and cannot easily compile things in parallel when using the -j switch.
Also libraries are always rebuilt when building a project.
You could therefore define an aggregate project Agg that groups A, B and C. Then, when you build with
gprbuild -PAgg.gpr
this will build all mains from A, B and C.
aggregate project Agg is
for Project_Files use ("a.gpr", "b.gpr", "c.gpr");
end Agg;
If B or C do not define any main program (through their Main attribute), all their sources are built. When you do not group them in the aggregate project, only those sources that are needed by A will be built.
If you add a main to a project P not already explicitly referenced in the aggregate project, you will need to add "p.gpr" in the list of project files for the aggregate project, or the main will not be built when building the aggregate project.
Aggregate projects are only supported with gprbuild, but not with gnatmake.
One other case is when you have multiple applications and libraries that are built independently from each other (but can be built in parallel). For instance, you have a project tree rooted at A, and another one (which might share some subprojects) rooted at B.
Using only gprbuild, you could do
gprbuild -PA.gpr
gprbuild -PB.gpr
to build both. But again, gprbuild has to do some duplicate work for those files that are shared between the two, and cannot truly build things in parallel efficiently.
If the two projects are really independent, share no sources other than through a common subproject, and have no source files with a common basename, you could create a project C that imports A and B. But these restrictions are often too strong, and one has to build them independently. An aggregate project does not have these limitations and can aggregate two project trees that have common sources.
This scenario is particularly useful in environments like VxWorks 653 where the applications running in the multiple partitions can be built in parallel through a single gprbuild command. This also works nicely with Annex E.
The environment variables at the time you launch gprbuild will influence the view these tools have of the project (PATH to find the compiler, ADA_PROJECT_PATH or GPR_PROJECT_PATH to find the projects, environment variables that are referenced in project files through the "external" statement,...). Several command line switches can be used to override those (-X or -aP), but on some systems and with some projects, this might make the command line too long, and on all systems often make it hard to read.
An aggregate project can be used to set the environment for all projects built through that aggregate. One of the nice aspects is that you can put the aggregate project under configuration management, and make sure all your user have a consistent environment when building. The syntax looks like
aggregate project Agg is
for Project_Files use ("A.gpr", "B.gpr");
for Project_Path use ("../dir1", "../dir1/dir2");
for External ("BUILD") use "PRODUCTION";
package Builder is
for Switches ("Ada") use ("-q");
end Builder;
end Agg;
One of the often requested features in projects is to be able to
reference external variables in with statements, as in
with external("SETUP") & "path/prj.gpr"; -- ILLEGAL
project MyProject is
...
end MyProject;
For various reasons, this isn't authorized. But using aggregate projects provide an elegant solution. For instance, you could use a project file like:
aggregate project Agg is
for Project_Path use (external("SETUP") & "path");
for Project_Files use ("myproject.gpr");
end Agg;
with "prj.gpr"; -- searched on Agg'Project_Path
project MyProject is
...
end MyProject;
The loading of aggregate projects is optimized in gprbuild, so that all files are searched for only once on the disk (thus reducing the number of system calls and contributing to faster compilation times especially on systems with sources on remote servers). As part of the loading, gprbuild computes how and where a source file should be compiled, and even if it is found several times in the aggregated projects it will be compiled only once.
Since there is no ambiguity as to which switches should be used, files can be compiled in parallel (through the usual -j switch) and this can be done while maximizing the use of CPUs (compared to launching multiple gprbuild and gnatmake commands in parallel).
An aggregate project follows the general syntax of project files. The
recommended extension is still .gpr. However, a special
aggregate qualifier must be put before the keyword
project.
An aggregate project cannot with any other project (standard or
aggregate), except an abstract project which can be used to share attribute
values. Also, aggregate projects cannot be extended or imported though a
with clause by any other project. Building other aggregate projects from
an aggregate project is done through the Project_Files attribute (see below).
An aggregate project does not have any source files directly (only through other standard projects). Therefore a number of the standard attributes and packages are forbidden in an aggregate project. Here is the (non exhaustive) list:
The only package that is authorized (albeit optional) is Builder. Other packages (in particular Compiler, Binder and Linker) are forbidden. It is an error to have any of these (and such an error prevents the proper loading of the aggregate project).
Three new attributes have been created, which can only be used in the context of aggregate projects:
Basically, the idea is to specify all those projects that have
main programs you want to build and link, or libraries you want to
build. You can even specify projects that do not use the Main
attribute nor the Library_* attributes, and the result will be to
build all their source files (not just the ones needed by other
projects).
The file can include paths (absolute or relative). Paths are relative to
the location of the aggregate project file itself (if you use a base name,
we expect to find the .gpr file in the same directory as the aggregate
project file). The environment variables ADA_PROJECT_PATH,
GPR_PROJECT_PATH and GPR_PROJECT_PATH_FILE are not used to find
the project files. The extension .gpr is mandatory, since this attribute
contains file names, not project names.
Paths can also include the "*" and "**" globbing patterns. The
latter indicates that any subdirectory (recursively) will be
searched for matching files. The latter ("**") can only occur at the
last position in the directory part (ie "a/**/*.gpr" is supported, but
not "**/a/*.gpr"). Starting the pattern with "**" is equivalent
to starting with "./**".
For now, the pattern "*" is only allowed in the filename part, not
in the directory part. This is mostly for efficiency reasons to limit the
number of system calls that are needed.
Here are a few valid examples:
for Project_Files use ("a.gpr", "subdir/b.gpr");
-- two specific projects relative to the directory of agg.gpr
for Project_Files use ("**/*.gpr");
-- all projects recursively
with statements.
When you specify a project in Project_Files
say "x/y/a.gpr"), and this projects imports a project "b.gpr", only
b.gpr is searched in the project path. a.gpr must be exactly at
<dir of the aggregate>/x/y/a.gpr.
This attribute, however, does not affect the search for the aggregated
project files specified with Project_Files.
Each aggregate project has its own (that is if agg1.gpr includes agg2.gpr, they can potentially both have a different project path).
This project path is defined as the concatenation, in that order, of:
In the example above, agg2.gpr's project path is not influenced by the attribute agg1'Project_Path, nor is agg1 influenced by agg2'Project_Path.
This can potentially lead to errors. In the following example:
+---------------+ +----------------+
| Agg1.gpr |-=--includes--=-->| Agg2.gpr |
| 'project_path| | 'project_path |
| | | |
+---------------+ +----------------+
: :
includes includes
: :
v v
+-------+ +---------+
| P.gpr |<---------- withs --------| Q.gpr |
+-------+---------\ +---------+
| |
withs |
| |
v v
+-------+ +---------+
| R.gpr | | R'.gpr |
+-------+ +---------+
When looking for p.gpr, both aggregates find the same physical file on the disk. However, it might happen that with their different project paths, both aggregate projects would in fact find a different r.gpr. Since we have a common project (p.gpr) "with"ing two different r.gpr, this will be reported as an error by the builder.
Directories are relative to the location of the aggregate project file.
Here are a few valid examples:
for Project_Path use ("/usr/local/gpr", "gpr/");
external statement
in projects. It does not affect the environment variables
themselves (so for instance you cannot use it to change the value
of your PATH as seen from the spawned compiler).
This attribute affects the external values as seen in the rest of the aggreate projects, and in the aggregated projects.
The exact value of external a variable comes from one of three sources (each level overrides the previous levels):
for External ("BUILD_MODE") use "DEBUG";
These override the value given by the attribute, so that users can override the value set in the (presumably shared with others in his team) aggregate project.
This always takes precedence.
This attribute is only taken into account in the main aggregate project (i.e. the one specified on the command line to gprbuild), and ignored in other aggregate projects. It is invalid in standard projects. The goal is to have a consistent value in all projects that are built through the aggregate, which would not be the case in the diamond case: A groups the aggregate projects B and C, which both (either directly or indirectly) build the project P. If B and C could set different values for the environment variables, we would have two different views of P, which in particular might impact the list of source files in P.
As we mentioned before, only the package Builder can be specified in an aggregate project. In this package, only the following attributes are valid:
Switches is others. All other indexes will
be ignored.
Example:
for Switches (other) use ("-v", "-k", "-j8");
These switches are only read from the main aggregate project (the one passed on the command line), and ignored in all other aggregate projects or projects.
It can only contain builder switches, not compiler switches.
for Global_Compilation_Switches ("Ada") use ("O1", "-g");
for Global_Compilation_Switches ("C") use ("-O2");
This attribute is only taken into account in the aggregate project specified on the command line, not in other aggregate projects.
In the projects grouped by that aggregate, the attribute Builder.Global_Compilation_Switches is also ignored. However, the attribute Compiler.Default_Switches will be taken into account (but that of the aggregate have higher priority). The attribute Compiler.Switches is also taken into account and can be used to override the switches for a specific file. As a result, it always has priority.
The rules are meant to avoid ambiguities when compiling. For instance, aggregate project Agg groups the projects A and B, that both depend on C. Here is an extra for all of these projects:
aggregate project Agg is
for Project_Files use ("a.gpr", "b.gpr");
package Builder is
for Global_Compilation_Switches ("Ada") use ("-O2");
end Builder;
end Agg;
with "c.gpr";
project A is
package Builder is
for Global_Compilation_Switches ("Ada") use ("-O1");
-- ignored
end Builder;
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O1", "-g");
for Switches ("a_file1.adb")
use ("-O0");
end Compiler;
end A;
with "c.gpr";
project B is
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada") use ("-O0");
end Compiler;
end B;
project C is
package Compiler is
for Default_Switches ("Ada")
use ("-O3",
"-gnatn");
for Switches ("c_file1.adb")
use ("-O0", "-g");
end Compiler;
end C;
then the following switches are used:
Even though C is seen through two paths (through A and through
B), the switches used by the compiler are unambiguous.
Projects can locally add to those by using the
Compiler.Local_Configuration_Pragmas attribute if they need.
For projects that are built through the aggregate, the package Builder is ignored, except for the Executable attribute which specifies the name of the executables resulting from the link of the main programs, and for the Executable_Suffix.
Aggregate library projects make it possible to build a single library using object files built using other standard or library projects. This gives the flexibility to describe an application as having multiple modules (a GUI, database access, ...) using different project files (so possibly built with different compiler options) and yet create a single library (static or relocatable) out of the corresponding object files.
For example, we can define an aggregate project Agg that groups A, B and C:
aggregate library project Agg is
for Project_Files use ("a.gpr", "b.gpr", "c.gpr");
for Library_Name use ("agg");
for Library_Dir use ("lagg");
end Agg;
Then, when you build with:
gprbuild agg.gpr
This will build all units from projects A, B and C and will create a static library named libagg.a into the lagg directory. An aggregate library project has the same set of restriction as a standard library project.
Note that a shared aggregate library project cannot aggregates a static library project. In platforms where a compiler option is required to create relocatable object files, a Builder package in the aggregate library project may be used:
aggregate library project Agg is
for Project_Files use ("a.gpr", "b.gpr", "c.gpr");
for Library_Name use ("agg");
for Library_Dir use ("lagg");
for Library_Kind use "relocatable";
package Builder is
for Global_Compilation_Switches ("Ada") use ("-fPIC");
end Builder;
end Agg;
With the above aggregate library Builder package, the -fPIC
option will be passed to the compiler when building any source code
from projects a.gpr, b.gpr and c.gpr.
An aggregate library project follows the general syntax of project
files. The recommended extension is still .gpr. However, a special
aggregate library qualifier must be put before the keyword
project.
An aggregate library project cannot with any other project
(standard or aggregate), except an abstract project which can be used
to share attribute values.
An aggregate library project does not have any source files directly (only through other standard projects). Therefore a number of the standard attributes and packages are forbidden in an aggregate library project. Here is the (non exhaustive) list:
The only package that is authorized (albeit optional) is Builder.
The Project_Files attribute (See see Aggregate Projects) is used to
described the aggregated projects whose object files have to be
included into the aggregate library. The environment variables
ADA_PROJECT_PATH, GPR_PROJECT_PATH and
GPR_PROJECT_PATH_FILE are not used to find the project files.
This section describes the syntactic structure of project files, the various constructs that can be used. Finally, it ends with a summary of all available attributes.
Project files have an Ada-like syntax. The minimal project file is:
project Empty is
end Empty;
The identifier Empty is the name of the project.
This project name must be present after the reserved
word end at the end of the project file, followed by a semi-colon.
Identifiers (i.e. the user-defined names such as project or variable names) have the same syntax as Ada identifiers: they must start with a letter, and be followed by zero or more letters, digits or underscore characters; it is also illegal to have two underscores next to each other. Identifiers are always case-insensitive ("Name" is the same as "name").
simple_name ::= identifier
name ::= simple_name { . simple_name }
Strings are used for values of attributes or as indexes for these attributes. They are in general case sensitive, except when noted otherwise (in particular, strings representing file names will be case insensitive on some systems, so that "file.adb" and "File.adb" both represent the same file).
Reserved words are the same as for standard Ada 95, and cannot
be used for identifiers. In particular, the following words are currently
used in project files, but others could be added later on. In bold are the
extra reserved words in project files: all, at, case, end, for, is,
limited, null, others, package, renames, type, use, when, with, extends,
external, project.
Comments in project files have the same syntax as in Ada, two consecutive hyphens through the end of the line.
A project may be an independent project, entirely defined by a single project file. Any source file in an independent project depends only on the predefined library and other source files in the same project. But a project may also depend on other projects, either by importing them through with clauses, or by extending at most one other project. Both types of dependency can be used in the same project.
A path name denotes a project file. It can be absolute or relative. An absolute path name includes a sequence of directories, in the syntax of the host operating system, that identifies uniquely the project file in the file system. A relative path name identifies the project file, relative to the directory that contains the current project, or relative to a directory listed in the environment variables ADA_PROJECT_PATH and GPR_PROJECT_PATH. Path names are case sensitive if file names in the host operating system are case sensitive. As a special case, the directory separator can always be "/" even on Windows systems, so that project files can be made portable across architectures. The syntax of the environment variable ADA_PROJECT_PATH and GPR_PROJECT_PATH is a list of directory names separated by colons on UNIX and semicolons on Windows.
A given project name can appear only once in a context clause.
It is illegal for a project imported by a context clause to refer, directly or indirectly, to the project in which this context clause appears (the dependency graph cannot contain cycles), except when one of the with clause in the cycle is a limited with.
with "other_project.gpr";
project My_Project extends "extended.gpr" is
end My_Project;
These dependencies form a directed graph, potentially cyclic when using limited with. The subprogram reflecting the extends relations is a tree.
A project's immediate sources are the source files directly defined by that project, either implicitly by residing in the project source directories, or explicitly through any of the source-related attributes. More generally, a project sources are the immediate sources of the project together with the immediate sources (unless overridden) of any project on which it depends directly or indirectly.
A project hierarchy can be created, where projects are children of
other projects. The name of such a child project must be Parent.Child,
where Parent is the name of the parent project. In particular, this
makes all with clauses of the parent project automatically visible
in the child project.
project ::= context_clause project_declaration
context_clause ::= {with_clause}
with_clause ::= with path_name { , path_name } ;
path_name ::= string_literal
project_declaration ::= simple_project_declaration | project_extension
simple_project_declaration ::=
project <project_>name is
{declarative_item}
end <project_>simple_name;
Before the reserved project, there may be one or two qualifiers, that
is identifiers or reserved words, to qualify the project.
The current list of qualifiers is:
Source_Dirs,
Source_Files, Languages or Source_List_File, or one of
Source_Dirs, Source_Files, or Languages must be declared
as empty. If it extends another project, the project it extends must also be a
qualified abstract project.
Library_Name and Library_Dir.
Declarations introduce new entities that denote types, variables, attributes, and packages. Some declarations can only appear immediately within a project declaration. Others can appear within a project or within a package.
declarative_item ::= simple_declarative_item
| typed_string_declaration
| package_declaration
simple_declarative_item ::= variable_declaration
| typed_variable_declaration
| attribute_declaration
| case_construction
| empty_declaration
empty_declaration ::= null ;
An empty declaration is allowed anywhere a declaration is allowed. It has no effect.
A project file may contain packages, that group attributes (typically all the attributes that are used by one of the GNAT tools).
A package with a given name may only appear once in a project file. The following packages are currently supported in project files (See see Attributes for the list of attributes that each can contain).
BinderBuilderCompiler, Binder or Linker packages,
but there are some general options that should be defined in this
package. See Main Subprograms, and see Executable File Names in
particular.
CheckBuilder. The first string should always be -rules to specify
that all the other options belong to the -rules section of the
parameters to gnatcheck.
CleanCompilerCross_ReferenceBuilder.
EliminateBuilder.
FinderBuilder.
GnatlsGnatstubBuilder.
IDEInstallLinkerMetricsBuilder.
NamingPretty_PrinterBuilder.
RemoteStackBuilder.
SynchronizeIn its simplest form, a package may be empty:
project Simple is
package Builder is
end Builder;
end Simple;
A package may contain attribute declarations, variable declarations and case constructions, as will be described below.
When there is ambiguity between a project name and a package name,
the name always designates the project. To avoid possible confusion, it is
always a good idea to avoid naming a project with one of the
names allowed for packages or any name that starts with gnat.
A package can also be defined by a renaming declaration. The new package renames a package declared in a different project file, and has the same attributes as the package it renames. The name of the renamed package must be the same as the name of the renaming package. The project must contain a package declaration with this name, and the project must appear in the context clause of the current project, or be its parent project. It is not possible to add or override attributes to the renaming project. If you need to do so, you should use an extending declaration (see below).
Packages that are renamed in other project files often come from project files that have no sources: they are just used as templates. Any modification in the template will be reflected automatically in all the project files that rename a package from the template. This is a very common way to share settings between projects.
Finally, a package can also be defined by an extending declaration. This is similar to a renaming declaration, except that it is possible to add or override attributes.
package_declaration ::= package_spec | package_renaming | package_extension
package_spec ::=
package <package_>simple_name is
{simple_declarative_item}
end package_identifier ;
package_renaming ::==
package <package_>simple_name renames <project_>simple_name.package_identifier ;
package_extension ::==
package <package_>simple_name extends <project_>simple_name.package_identifier is
{simple_declarative_item}
end package_identifier ;
An expression is any value that can be assigned to an attribute or a variable. It is either a literal value, or a construct requiring runtime computation by the project manager. In a project file, the computed value of an expression is either a string or a list of strings.
A string value is one of:
"comm/my_proj.gpr"
"prefix_" & Var.
A list of strings is one of the following:
(File_Name, "gnat.adc", File_Name & ".orig") or ().
("A", "B") & "C"
The following is the grammar for expressions
string_literal ::= "{string_element}" -- Same as Ada
string_expression ::= string_literal
| variable_name
| external_value
| attribute_reference
| ( string_expression { & string_expression } )
string_list ::= ( string_expression { , string_expression } )
| string_variable_name
| string_attribute_reference
term ::= string_expression | string_list
expression ::= term { & term } -- Concatenation
Concatenation involves strings and list of strings. As soon as a list of strings is involved, the result of the concatenation is a list of strings. The following Ada declarations show the existing operators:
function "&" (X : String; Y : String) return String;
function "&" (X : String_List; Y : String) return String_List;
function "&" (X : String_List; Y : String_List) return String_List;
Here are some specific examples:
List := () & File_Name; -- One string in this list
List2 := List & (File_Name & ".orig"); -- Two strings
Big_List := List & Lists2; -- Three strings
Illegal := "gnat.adc" & List2; -- Illegal, must start with list
An external value is an expression whose value is obtained from the command that invoked the processing of the current project file (typically a gnatmake or gprbuild command).
There are two kinds of external values, one that returns a single string, and one that returns a string list.
The syntax of a single string external value is:
external_value ::= external ( string_literal [, string_literal] )
The first string_literal is the string to be used on the command line or in the environment to specify the external value. The second string_literal, if present, is the default to use if there is no specification for this external value either on the command line or in the environment.
Typically, the external value will either exist in the environment variables or be specified on the command line through the -Xvbl=value switch. If both are specified, then the command line value is used, so that a user can more easily override the value.
The function external always returns a string. It is an error if the
value was not found in the environment and no default was specified in the
call to external.
An external reference may be part of a string expression or of a string list expression, and can therefore appear in a variable declaration or an attribute declaration.
Most of the time, this construct is used to initialize typed variables, which are then used in case statements to control the value assigned to attributes in various scenarios. Thus such variables are often called scenario variables.
The syntax for a string list external value is:
external_value ::= external_as_list ( string_literal , string_literal )
The first string_literal is the string to be used on the command line or in the environment to specify the external value. The second string_literal is the separator between each component of the string list.
If the external value does not exist in the environment or on the command line, the result is an empty list. This is also the case, if the separator is an empty string or if the external value is only one separator.
Any separator at the beginning or at the end of the external value is discarded. Then, if there is no separator in the external value, the result is a string list with only one string. Otherwise, any string between the beginning and the first separator, between two consecutive separators and between the last separator and the end are components of the string list.
external_as_list ("SWITCHES", ",")
If the external value is "-O2,-g", the result is ("-O2", "-g").
If the external value is ",-O2,-g,", the result is also ("-O2", "-g").
if the external value is "-gnatv", the result is ("-gnatv").
If the external value is ",,", the result is ("").
If the external value is ",", the result is (), the empty string list.
A type declaration introduces a discrete set of string literals. If a string variable is declared to have this type, its value is restricted to the given set of literals. These are the only named types in project files. A string type may only be declared at the project level, not inside a package.
typed_string_declaration ::=
type <typed_string_>_simple_name is ( string_literal {, string_literal} );
The string literals in the list are case sensitive and must all be different. They may include any graphic characters allowed in Ada, including spaces. Here is an example of a string type declaration:
type OS is ("NT", "nt", "Unix", "GNU/Linux", "other OS");
Variables of a string type are called typed variables; all other
variables are called untyped variables. Typed variables are
particularly useful in case constructions, to support conditional
attribute declarations. (see Case Constructions).
A string type may be referenced by its name if it has been declared in the same project file, or by an expanded name whose prefix is the name of the project in which it is declared.
Variables store values (strings or list of strings) and can appear as part of an expression. The declaration of a variable creates the variable and assigns the value of the expression to it. The name of the variable is available immediately after the assignment symbol, if you need to reuse its old value to compute the new value. Before the completion of its first declaration, the value of a variable defaults to the empty string ("").
A typed variable can be used as part of a case expression to compute the value, but it can only be declared once in the project file, so that all case constructions see the same value for the variable. This provides more consistency and makes the project easier to understand. The syntax for its declaration is identical to the Ada syntax for an object declaration. In effect, a typed variable acts as a constant.
An untyped variable can be declared and overridden multiple times within the same project. It is declared implicitly through an Ada assignment. The first declaration establishes the kind of the variable (string or list of strings) and successive declarations must respect the initial kind. Assignments are executed in the order in which they appear, so the new value replaces the old one and any subsequent reference to the variable uses the new value.
A variable may be declared at the project file level, or within a package.
typed_variable_declaration ::=
<typed_variable_>simple_name : <typed_string_>name := string_expression;
variable_declaration ::= <variable_>simple_name := expression;
Here are some examples of variable declarations:
This_OS : OS := external ("OS"); -- a typed variable declaration
That_OS := "GNU/Linux"; -- an untyped variable declaration
Name := "readme.txt";
Save_Name := Name & ".saved";
Empty_List := ();
List_With_One_Element := ("-gnaty");
List_With_Two_Elements := List_With_One_Element & "-gnatg";
Long_List := ("main.ada", "pack1_.ada", "pack1.ada", "pack2_.ada");
A variable reference may take several forms:
A context may be one of the following:
A case statement is used in a project file to effect conditional behavior. Through this statement, you can set the value of attributes and variables depending on the value previously assigned to a typed variable.
All choices in a choice list must be distinct. Unlike Ada, the choice
lists of all alternatives do not need to include all values of the type.
An others choice must appear last in the list of alternatives.
The syntax of a case construction is based on the Ada case statement
(although the null statement for empty alternatives is optional).
The case expression must be a typed string variable, whose value is often given by an external reference (see External Values).
Each alternative starts with the reserved word when, either a list of
literal strings separated by the "|" character or the reserved word
others, and the "=>" token.
Each literal string must belong to the string type that is the type of the
case variable.
After each =>, there are zero or more statements. The only
statements allowed in a case construction are other case constructions,
attribute declarations and variable declarations. String type declarations and
package declarations are not allowed. Variable declarations are restricted to
variables that have already been declared before the case construction.
case_statement ::=
case <typed_variable_>name is {case_item} end case ;
case_item ::=
when discrete_choice_list =>
{case_statement
| attribute_declaration
| variable_declaration
| empty_declaration}
discrete_choice_list ::= string_literal {| string_literal} | others
Here is a typical example:
project MyProj is
type OS_Type is ("GNU/Linux", "Unix", "NT", "VMS");
OS : OS_Type := external ("OS", "GNU/Linux");
package Compiler is
case OS is
when "GNU/Linux" | "Unix" =>
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-gnath");
when "NT" =>
for Switches ("Ada")
use ("-gnatP");
when others =>
null;
end case;
end Compiler;
end MyProj;
A project (and its packages) may have attributes that define the project's properties. Some attributes have values that are strings; others have values that are string lists.
attribute_declaration ::=
simple_attribute_declaration | indexed_attribute_declaration
simple_attribute_declaration ::= for attribute_designator use expression ;
indexed_attribute_declaration ::=
for <indexed_attribute_>simple_name ( string_literal) use expression ;
attribute_designator ::=
<simple_attribute_>simple_name
| <indexed_attribute_>simple_name ( string_literal )
There are two categories of attributes: simple attributes and indexed attributes. Each simple attribute has a default value: the empty string (for string attributes) and the empty list (for string list attributes). An attribute declaration defines a new value for an attribute, and overrides the previous value. The syntax of a simple attribute declaration is similar to that of an attribute definition clause in Ada.
Some attributes are indexed. These attributes are mappings whose domain is a set of strings. They are declared one association at a time, by specifying a point in the domain and the corresponding image of the attribute. Like untyped variables and simple attributes, indexed attributes may be declared several times. Each declaration supplies a new value for the attribute, and replaces the previous setting.
Here are some examples of attribute declarations:
-- simple attributes
for Object_Dir use "objects";
for Source_Dirs use ("units", "test/drivers");
-- indexed attributes
for Body ("main") use "Main.ada";
for Switches ("main.ada")
use ("-v", "-gnatv");
for Switches ("main.ada") use Builder'Switches ("main.ada") & "-g";
-- indexed attributes copy (from package Builder in project Default)
-- The package name must always be specified, even if it is the current
-- package.
for Default_Switches use Default.Builder'Default_Switches;
Attributes references may appear anywhere in expressions, and are used to retrieve the value previously assigned to the attribute. If an attribute has not been set in a given package or project, its value defaults to the empty string or the empty list.
attribute_reference ::= attribute_prefix ' <simple_attribute>_simple_name [ (string_literal) ]
attribute_prefix ::= project
| <project_>simple_name
| package_identifier
| <project_>simple_name . package_identifier
Examples are:
project'Object_Dir
Naming'Dot_Replacement
Imported_Project'Source_Dirs
Imported_Project.Naming'Casing
Builder'Default_Switches ("Ada")
The prefix of an attribute may be:
project for an attribute of the current project
In the following sections, all predefined attributes are succinctly described, first the project level attributes, that is those attributes that are not in a package, then the attributes in the different packages.
It is possible for different tools to create dynamically new packages with attributes, or new attribute in predefined packages. These attributes are not documented here.
The attributes under Configuration headings are usually found only in configuration project files.
The characteristics of each attribute are indicated as follows:
The value of an attribute may be a single string, indicated by the word "single", or a string list, indicated by the word "list".
When the attribute is read-only, that is when it is not allowed to declare the attribute, this is indicated by the words "read-only".
If it is allowed in the value of the attribute (both single and list) to have an optional index, this is indicated by the words "optional index".
When an it is an indexed attribute, this is indicated by the word "indexed".
For an indexed attribute, if the index is case-insensitive, this is indicated by the words "case-insensitive index".
For an indexed attribute, when the index is a file name, this is indicated by the words "file name index". The index may or may not be case-sensitive, depending on the platform.
For an indexed attribute, if it is allowed to use others as the index, this is indicated by the words "others allowed".
When others is used as the index of an indexed attribute, the value of the attribute indexed by others is used when no other index would apply.
The name of the project.
The path name of the project directory.
The list of main sources for the executables.
The list of languages of the sources of the project.
The index is the file name of an executable source. Indicates the list of units from the main project that need to be bound and linked with their closures with the executable. The index is either a file name, a language name or "*". The roots for an executable source are those in Roots with an index that is the executable source file name, if declared. Otherwise, they are those in Roots with an index that is the language name of the executable source, if present. Otherwise, they are those in Roots ("*"), if declared. If none of these three possibilities are declared, then there are no roots for the executable source.
Indicates if the project is externally built. Only case-insensitive values allowed are "true" and "false", the default.
Indicates the object directory for the project.
Indicates the exec directory for the project, that is the directory where the executables are.
The list of source directories of the project.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of language names. Indicates that in the source search path of the index language the source directories of the languages in the list should be included.
Example:
for Inherit_Source_Path ("C++") use ("C");
The list of directories that are included in Source_Dirs but are not source directories of the project.
Value is a list of simple names for subdirectories that are removed from the list of source directories, including theur subdirectories.
Value is a list of source file simple names.
Obsolescent. Equivalent to Excluded_Source_Files.
Value is a list of simple file names that are not sources of the project. Allows to remove sources that are inherited or found in the source directories and that match the naming scheme.
Value is a text file name that contains a list of source file simple names, one on each line.
Value is a text file name that contains a list of file simple names that are not sources of the project.
Value is a list of file names that constitutes the interfaces of the project.
Value is the list of aggregated projects.
Value is a list of directories that are added to the project search path when looking for the aggregated projects.
Index is the name of an external reference. Value is the value of the external reference to be used when parsing the aggregated projects.
Value is the name of the library directory. This attribute needs to be declared for each library project.
Value is the name of the library. This attribute needs to be declared or inherited for each library project.
Specifies the kind of library: static library (archive) or shared library. Case-insensitive values must be one of "static" for archives (the default) or "dynamic" or "relocatable" for shared libraries.
Value is the name of the library file.
Value is the list of unit names that constitutes the interfaces of a Stand-Alone Library project.
Specifies if a Stand-Alone Library (SAL) is encapsulated or not. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "standard" for non encapsulated SALs, "encapsulated" for encapsulated SALs or "no" for non SAL library project.
Value is a list of options that need to be used when linking an encapsulated Stand-Alone Library.
Indicates if encapsulated Stand-Alone Libraries are supported. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "true" and "false" (the default).
Indicates if a Stand-Alone Library is auto-initialized. Only authorized case-insentive values are "true" and "false".
Value is a list of options that are to be used at the beginning of the command line when linking a shared library.
Value is a list of options that are to be used when linking a shared library.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of options for an invocation of the compiler of the language. This invocation is done for a shared library project with sources of the language. The output of the invocation is the path name of a shared library file. The directory name is to be put in the run path option switch when linking the shared library for the project.
Value is the name of the directory where copies of the sources of the interfaces of a Stand-Alone Library are to be copied.
Value is the name of the directory where the ALI files of the interfaces of a Stand-Alone Library are to be copied. When this attribute is not declared, the directory is the library directory.
Obsolescent attribute. Specify the linker driver used to link a shared library. Use instead attribute Linker'Driver.
Value is the name of the library symbol file.
Indicates the symbol policy kind. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "autonomous", "default", "compliant", "controlled" or "direct".
Value is the name of the reference symbol file.
Value is the case-insensitive name of the language of a project when attribute Languages is not specified.
Value is the list of switches to be used when specifying the run path option in an executable.
Value is the the string that may replace the path name of the executable directory in the run path options.
Indicates if there may be or not several run path options specified when linking an executable. Only authorized case-insensitive b=values are "true" or "false" (the default).
Index is a language name. Specify the version of a toolchain for a language.
Obsolescent. No longer used.
Index is a language name. Indicates if invoking the compiler for a language produces an object file. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "false" and "true" (the default).
Index is a language name. Indicates if the object files created by the compiler for a language need to be linked in the executable. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "false" and "true" (the default).
Value is the name of the target platform.
Value is the path name of the application that is to be used to build libraries. Usually the path name of "gprlib".
Indicates the level of support of libraries. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "static_only", "full" or "none" (the default).
Value is the name of the application to be used to create a static library (archive), followed by the options to be used.
Value is the list of options to be used when invoking the archive builder to add project files into an archive.
Value is the name of the archive indexer, followed by the required options.
Value is the extension of archives. When not declared, the extension is ".a".
Value is the name of the partial linker executable, followed by the required options.
Value is the prefix in the name of shared library files. When not declared, the prefix is "lib".
Value is the the extension of the name of shared library files. When not declared, the extension is ".so".
Indicates if symbolic links are supported on the platform. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "true" and "false" (the default).
Indicates if major and minor ids for shared library names are supported on the platform. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "true" and "false" (the default).
Indicates if auto-initialization of Stand-Alone Libraries is supported. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "true" and "false" (the default).
Value is the list of required switches when linking a shared library.
Value is the list of switches to specify a internal name for a shared library.
Value is the name of the option that needs to be used, concatenated with the path name of the library file, when linking a shared library.
Index is a language name. Value is the path name of the directory where the runtime libraries are located.
Index is a language name. Value is the path name of the directory where the sources of runtime libraries are located.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used when binding code of the language, if there is no applicable attribute Switches.
Index is either a language name or a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when binding code. Index is either the source file name of the executable to be bound or the language name of the code to be bound.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of the application to be used when binding code of the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of the required switches to be used when binding code of the language.
Index is a language name. Value is a prefix to be used for the binder exchange file name for the language. Used to have different binder exchange file names when binding different languages.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of the environment variable that contains the path for the object directories.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of the environment variable. The value of the environment variable is the path name of a text file that contains the list of object directories.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of builder switches to be used when building an executable of the language, if there is no applicable attribute Switches.
Index is either a language name or a source file name. Value is the list of builder switches to be used when building an executable. Index is either the source file name of the executable to be built or its language name.
Index is either a language name or a source file name. Value is the list of compilation switches to be used when building an executable. Index is either the source file name of the executable to be built or its language name.
Index is an executable source file name. Value is the simple file name of the executable to be built.
Value is the extension of the file names of executable. When not specified, the extension is the default extension of executables on the platform.
Value is the file name of a configuration pragmas file that is specified to the Ada compiler when compiling any Ada source in the project tree.
Index is a language name. Value is the file name of a configuration file that is specified to the compiler when compiling any source of the language in the project tree.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatcheck for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatcheck for the source.
Value is a list of switches to be used by the cleaning application.
Index is a language names. Value is the list of extensions for file names derived from object file names that need to be cleaned in the object directory of the project.
Index is a language names. Value is the list of extensions for file names derived from source file names that need to be cleaned in the object directory of the project.
Value is a list of file names expressed as regular expressions that are to be deleted by gprclean in the object directory of the project.
Value is list of file names expressed as regular expressions that are to be deleted by gprclean in the exec directory of the main project.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking the compiler for the language for a source of the project, if there is no applicable attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name or a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used when invoking the compiler for the source or for its language.
Value is the file name of a configuration pragmas file that is specified to the Ada compiler when compiling any Ada source in the project.
Index is a language name. Value is the file name of a configuration file that is specified to the compiler when compiling any source of the language in the project.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of the executable for the compiler of the language.
Index is a language name. Indicates the kind of the language, either file based or unit based. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "unit_based" and "file_based" (the default).
Index is a language name. Indicates how the dependencies are handled for the language. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "makefile", "ali_file", "ali_closure" or "none" (the default).
Equivalent to attribute Leading_Required_Switches.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of the minimum switches to be used at the beginning of the command line when invoking the compiler for the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of the minimum switches to be used at the end of the command line when invoking the compiler for the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used when compiling a source of the language when the project is a shared library project.
Index is a language name. Value is the kind of path syntax to be used when invoking the compiler for the language. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "canonical" and "host" (the default).
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used just before the path name of the source to compile when invoking the compiler for a source of the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the extension of the object files created by the compiler of the language. When not specified, the extension is the default one for the platform.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used by the compiler of the language to specify the path name of the object file. When not specified, the switch used is "-o".
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used to compile a unit in a multi unit source of the language. The index of the unit in the source is concatenated with the last switches in the list.
Index is a language name. Value is the string to be used in the object file name before the index of the unit, when compiling a unit in a multi unit source of the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used to specify a mapping file when invoking the compiler for a source of the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the suffix to be used in a mapping file to indicate that the source is a spec.
Index is a language name. Value is the suffix to be used in a mapping file to indicate that the source is a body.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to specify to the compiler of the language a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration specific to a body of the language in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration specific to the body a unit in a multi unit source of the language in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration for all bodies of the languages in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration specific to a spec of the language in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration specific to the spec a unit in a multi unit source of the language in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Value is the template to be used to indicate a configuration for all specs of the languages in a configuration file.
Index is a language name. Indicates if there should be only one configuration file specified to the compiler of the language. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "true" and "false" (the default).
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used to specify to the compiler the dependency file when the dependency kind of the language is file based, and when Dependency_Driver is not specified for the language.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of the executable to be used to create the dependency file for a source of the language, followed by the required switches.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to specify to the compiler of the language to indicate a directory to look for sources.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of an environment variable that contains the path of all the directories that the compiler of the language may search for sources.
Index is a language name. Value is the name of an environment variable the value of which is the path name of a text file that contains the directories that the compiler of the language may search for sources.
Index is a language name. Value is the list of switches to specify to the compiler of the language the name of a text file that contains the list of object directories. When this attribute is not declared, the text file is not created.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatxref for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatxref for the source.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatelim for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatelim for the source.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatfind for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatfind for the source.
Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking gnatls.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatstub for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatstub for the source.
Index is the name of an external tool that the GNAT Programming System (GPS) is supporting. Value is a list of switches to use when invoking that tool.
Value is a string that designates the remote host in a cross-compilation environment, to be used for remote compilation and debugging. This attribute should not be specified when running on the local machine.
Value is a string that specifies the name of IP address of the embedded target in a cross-compilation environment, on which the program should execute.
Value is the name of the protocol to use to communicate with the target
in a cross-compilation environment, for example "wtx" or
"vxworks".
Index is a language Name. Value is a string that denotes the command to be
used to invoke the compiler. The value of Compiler_Command ("Ada") is
expected to be compatible with gnatmake, in particular in
the handling of switches.
Value is a string that specifies the name of the debugger to be used, such as gdb, powerpc-wrs-vxworks-gdb or gdb-4.
Value is a string that specifies the name of the gnatls utility
to be used to retrieve information about the predefined path; for example,
"gnatls", "powerpc-wrs-vxworks-gnatls".
Value is a string used to specify the Version Control System (VCS) to be used for this project, for example "Subversion", "ClearCase". If the value is set to "Auto", the IDE will try to detect the actual VCS used on the list of supported ones.
Value is a string that specifies the command used by the VCS to check the validity of a file, either when the user explicitly asks for a check, or as a sanity check before doing the check-in.
Value is a string that specifies the command used by the VCS to check the validity of a log file.
Value is the directory used to generate the documentation of source code.
Value is the install destination directory.
Value is the sources directory or subdirectory of Prefix.
Value is the executables directory or subdirectory of Prefix.
Value is library directory or subdirectory of Prefix.
Value is the project directory or subdirectory of Prefix.
Indicates that the project is to be installed or not. Case-insensitive value "false" means that the project is not to be installed, all other values mean that the project is to be installed.
Value is a list of switches that are required when invoking the linker to link an executable.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches for the linker when linking an executable for a main source of the language, when there is no applicable Switches.
Index is a source file name or a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used at the beginning of the command line when invoking the linker to build an executable for the source or for its language.
Index is a source file name or a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used when invoking the linker to build an executable for the source or for its language.
Index is a source file name or a language name. Value is the list of switches to be used at the end of the command line when invoking the linker to build an executable for the source or for its language. These switches may override the Required_Switches.
Value is a list of switches/options that are to be added when linking an executable from a project importing the current project directly or indirectly. Linker_Options are not used when linking an executable from the current project.
Value is the switch to specify the map file name that the linker needs to create.
Value is the name of the linker executable.
Value is the maximum number of character in the command line when invoking the linker to link an executable.
Indicates the kind of response file to create when the length of the linking command line is too large. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "none", "gnu", "object_list", "gcc_gnu", "gcc_option_list" and "gcc_object_list".
Value is the list of switches to specify a response file to the linker.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatmetric for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatmetric for the source.
Equivalent to attribute Spec_Suffix.
Index is a language name. Value is the extension of file names for specs of the language.
Equivalent to attribute Body_Suffix.
Index is a language name. Value is the extension of file names for bodies of the language.
Value is the extension of file names for subunits of Ada.
Indicates the casing of sources of the Ada language. Only authorized case-insensitive values are "lowercase", "uppercase" and "mixedcase".
Value is the string that replace the dot of unit names in the source file names of the Ada language.
Equivalent to attribute Spec.
Index is a unit name. Value is the file name of the spec of the unit.
Equivalent to attribute Body.
Index is a unit name. Value is the file name of the body of the unit.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of specs for the language that do not necessarily follow the naming scheme for the language and that may or may not be found in the source directories of the project.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of bodies for the language that do not necessarily follow the naming scheme for the language and that may or may not be found in the source directories of the project.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatpp for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatpp for the source.
If this attribute is defined it sets the patterns to synchronized from the master to the slaves. It is exclusive with Excluded_Patterns, that is it is an error to define both.
If this attribute is defined it sets the patterns of compilation artifacts to synchronized from the slaves to the build master. This attribute replace the default hard-coded patterns.
Set of patterns to ignore when synchronizing sources from the build master to the slaves. A set of predefined patterns are supported (e.g. *.o, *.ali, *.exe, etc.), this attributes make it possible to add some more patterns.
Value is the root directory used by the slave machines.
Value is the list of switches to be used when invoking gnatstack.
Index is a language name. Value is a list of switches to be used when invoking
gnatsync for a source of the language, if there is no applicable
attribute Switches.
Index is a source file name. Value is the list of switches to be used when
invoking gnatsync for the source.
GPRbuild is a generic build tool designed for the construction of
large multi-language systems organized into subsystems and libraries.
It is well-suited for compiled languages supporting separate compilation,
such as Ada, C, C++ and Fortran.
GPRbuild manages a three step build process.
Each compilation unit of each subsystem is examined in turn, checked for consistency, and compiled or recompiled when necessary by the appropriate compiler. The recompilation decision is based on dependency information that is typically produced by a previous compilation.
Compiled units from a given language are passed to a language-specific post-compilation tool if any. Also during this phase objects are grouped into static or dynamic libraries as specified.
All units or libraries from all subsystems are passed to a linker tool specific to the set of toolchains being used.
The tool is generic in that it provides, when possible, equivalent build capabilities for all supported languages. For this, it uses a configuration file <file>.cgpr that has a syntax and structure very similar to a project file, but which defines the characteristics of the supported languages and toolchains. The configuration file contains information such as:
On the other hand, GPRbuild is not a replacement for general-purpose
build tools such as make or ant which give the user a high
level of control over the build process itself. When building a system
requires complex actions that do not fit well in the three-phase process
described above, GPRbuild might not be sufficient.
In such situations, GPRbuild can still
be used to manage the appropriate part of the build. For
instance it can be called from within a Makefile.
Three elements can optionally be specified on GPRbuild's command line:
The general syntax is thus:
gprbuild [<proj>.gpr] [switches] [names]
{[-cargs opts] [-cargs:lang opts] [-largs opts] [-gargs opts]}
GPRbuild requires a project file, which may be specified on the command line either directly or through the -P switch. If not specified, GPRbuild uses the project file default.gpr if there is one in the current working directory. Otherwise, if there is only one project file in the current working directory, GPRbuild uses this project file.
Main source files represent the sources to be used as the main
programs. If they are not specified on the command line, GPRbuild uses
the source files specified with the Main attribute in the project
file. If none exists, then no executable will be built.
It is also possible to specify absolute file names, or file names relative
to the current directory.
When source files are specified along with the option -c, then recompilation will be considered only for those source files. In all other cases, GPRbuild compiles or recompiles all sources in the project tree that are not up to date, and builds or rebuilds libraries that are not up to date.
If invoked without the --config= or
--autoconf= options, then GPRbuild will look for a configuration
project file. The file name or path name of this configuration project file
depends on the target, the runtime and environment variable GPR_CONFIG
See Configuring with GPRconfig. If there is no such file in the default
locations expected by GPRbuild (<install>/share/gpr and the current
directory) then GPRbuild will invoke GPRconfig with
the languages from the project files, and create a configuration project
file auto.cgpr in the object directory of the main project. The project
auto.cgpr will be rebuilt at each GPRbuild invocation unless you use
the switch --autoconf=path/auto.cgpr, which will use the configuration
project file if it exists and create it otherwise.
Options given on the GPRbuild command line may be passed along to individual tools by preceding them with one of the “command line separators” shown below. Options following the separator, up to the next separator (or end of the command line), are passed along. The different command line separators are:
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separator are options for all compilers for all languages. Example: -cargs -g
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separator are options for the compiler of the specific language.
Examples:
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separator are options for all binder drivers.
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separators are options for the binder driver of the specific language.
Examples:
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separator are options for the linker, when linking an executable.
The arguments that follow up to the next command line separator are options for GPRbuild itself. Usually -gargs is specified after one or several other command line separators.
Equivalent to -gargs, provided for compatibility with gnatmake.
GPRbuild takes into account switches that may be specified on the command line or in attributes Switches(<main or language>) or Default_Switches (<language) in package Builder of the main project.
When there are a single main (specified on the command line or in attribute Main in the main project), the switches that are taken into account in package Builder of the main project are Switches (<main>), if declared, or Switches (<language of main>), if declared.
When there are several mains, if there are sources of the same language, then Switches (<language of main>) is taken into account, if specified.
When there are no main specified, if there is only one compiled language (that is a language with a non empty Compiler Driver), then Switches (<single language>) is taken into account, if specified.
The switches that are interpreted directly by GPRbuild are listed below.
First, the switches that may be specified only on the command line, but not in package Builder of the main project:
Activate the distributed compilation on the listed slaves nodes (IP or name).
Use name as the slave's environment directory instead of the default one. This options is only used in distributed mode.
Display information about GPRbuild: version, origin and legal status, then exit successfully, ignoring other options.
Display GPRbuild usage, then exit successfully, ignoring other options.
Display two lines: the configuration project file search path and the user project file search path, then exit successfully, ignoring other options.
This specifies the configuration project file name. By default, the configuration project file name is default.cgpr. Option --config= cannot be specified more than once. The configuration project file specified with --config= must exist.
This specifies a configuration project file name that already exists or will be created automatically. Option --autoconf= cannot be specified more than once. If the configuration project file specified with --autoconf= exists, then it is used. Otherwise, GPRconfig is invoked to create it automatically.
This specifies that the default configuration project file is <targetname>.cgpr. If no configuration project file with this name is found, then GPRconfig is invoked with option --target=<targetname>to create a configuration project file auto.cgpr.
Note: only one of --config, --autoconf or --target= can be specified.
This indicates that the real directories (except the source directories) are subdirectories of the directories specified in the project files. This applies in particular to object directories, library directories and exec directories. If the directories do not exist, they are created automatically.
Allow shared library projects to import projects that are not shared library projects.
Specify a source info file. If the source info file is specified as a relative path, then it is relative to the object directory of the main project. If the source info file does not exist, then after the Project Manager has successfully parsed and processed the project files and found the sources, it creates the source info file. If the source info file already exists and can be read successfully, then the Project Manager will get all the needed information about the sources from the source info file and will not look for them. This reduces the time to process the project files, especially when looking for sources that take a long time. If the source info file exists but cannot be parsed successfully, the Project Manager will attempt to recreate it. If the Project Manager fails to create the source info file, a message is issued, but GPRbuild does not fail.
Restrict the sources to be compiled to one or several languages. Each language name in the list is separated from the next by a comma, without any space.
Example: --restricted-to-languages=Ada,C
When this switch is used, switches -c, -b and -l are ignored. Only the compilation phase is performed and the sources that are not in the list of restricted languages are not compiled, including mains specified in package Builder of the main project.
Specify to GPRbuild to add directory dir to the user project file search path, before the default directory.
Display progress for each source, up to date or not, as a single line completed x out of y (zz%).... If the file needs to be compiled this is displayed after the invocation of the compiler. These lines are displayed even in quiet output mode (switch -q).
By default, symbolic links on project files are not taken into account when processing project files. Switch -eL changes this default behavior.
This switch is only accepted for compatibility with gnatmake, but it has no effect. For gnatmake, it means: echo commands to standard output instead of standard error, but for gprbuild, commands are always echoed to standard output.
By default, in non verbose mode, when an error occurs while processing a project file, only the simple name of the project file is displayed in the error message. When switch -F is used, the full path of the project file is used. This switch has no effect when switch -v is used.
Specify the file name of the executable. Switch -o can
be used only if there is exactly one executable being built;
that is, there is exactly one main on the command line,
or there are no mains on the command line and exactly one
main in attribute Main of the main project.
Specify the path name of the main project file. The space between -P and the project file name is optional. Specifying a project file name (with suffix .gpr) may be used in place of option -P. Exactly one main project file can be specified.
This switch has an effect only when -c or -u is also specified and there are no mains: it means that all sources of all projects need to be compiled or recompiled.
If there are sources specified on the command line, only compile these sources. If there are no sources specified on the command line, compile all the sources of the main project.
In both cases, do not attempt the binding and the linking phases.
If there are sources specified on the command line, only compile these sources. If there are no sources specified on the command line, compile all the sources of all the projects in the project tree.
In both cases, do not attempt the binding and the linking phases.
By default, GPRbuild does not display anything when processing project files, except when there are errors. This default behavior is obtained with switch -vP0. Switches -vP1 and -vP2 yield increasingly detailed output.
Specify an external reference that may be queried inside the project files
using built-in function external. For example, with
-XBUILD=DEBUG,
external("BUILD") inside a project file will have the value
"DEBUG".
Then, the switches that may be specified on the command line as well as in package Builder of the main project (attribute Switches):
When linking an executable, if supported by the platform, create a map file with the same name as the executable, but with suffix .map.
When linking an executable, if supported by the platform, create a map file with file name <map file>.
This indicates that sources of a project should import only sources or header files from directly imported projects, that is those projects mentioned in a with clause and the projects they extend directly or indirectly. A check is done in the compilation phase, after a successful compilation, that the sources follow these restrictions. For Ada sources, the check is fully enforced. For non Ada sources, the check is partial, as in the dependency file there is no distinction between header files directly included and those indirectly included. The check will fail if there is no possibility that a header file in a non directly imported project could have been indirectly imported. If the check fails, the compilation artifacts (dependency file, object file, switches file) are deleted.
This indicates that sources of a project can import sources or header files from directly or indirectly imported projects. This is the default behavior. This switch is provided to cancel a previous switch --no-indirect-imports on the command line.
Do not check if an object has been created after compilation.
Forbid the sources of the same Ada unit to be in different projects.
Disallow several simultaneous compilations for the same object directory.
Specify to GPRbuild that the post-compilation (or binding) phase is to be performed, but not the other phases unless they are specified by appropriate switches.
Specify to GPRbuild that the compilation phase is to be performed, but not the other phases unless they are specified by appropriate switches.
Force the complete processing of all phases (or of those explicitly specified) even when up to date.
By default, GPRbuild invokes one compiler at a time. With switch -j, it is possible to instruct GPRbuild to spawn several simultaneous compilation jobs if needed. For example, -j2 for two simultaneous compilation jobs or -j4 for four. On a multi-processor system, -j<num> can greatly speed up the build process. If -j0 is used, then the maximum number of simultaneous compilation jobs is the number of core processors on the platform.
Switch -j<num> is also used to spawned several simultaneous binding processes and several simultaneous linking processes when there are several mains to be bound and/or linked.
By default, GPRbuild stops spawning new compilation jobs at the first compilation failure. Using switch -k, it is possible to attempt to compile/recompile all the sources that are not up to date, even when some compilations failed. The post-compilation phase and the linking phase are never attempted if there are compilation failures, even when switch -k is used.
Specify to GPRbuild that the linking phase is to be performed, but not the other phases unless they are specified by appropriate switches.
Do not recompile Ada code if timestamps are different but checksums are the same.
By default, GPRbuild checks that the object, library and exec directories specified in project files exist. Switch -p instructs GPRbuild to attempt to create missing directories. Note that these switches may be specified in package Builder of the main project, but they are useless there as either the directories already exist or the processing of the project files has failed before the evaluation of the Builder switches, because there is at least one missing directory.
Do not display anything except errors and progress (switch -d). Cancel any previous switch -v.
Do not use a run path option to link executables or shared libraries, even when attribute Run_Path_Option is specified.
By default, GPRbuild will not recompile a source if all dependencies are satisfied. Switch -s instructs GPRbuild to recompile sources when a different set of compilation switches has been used in the previous compilation, even if all dependencies are satisfied. Each time GPRbuild invokes a compiler, it writes a text file that lists the switches used in the invocation of the compiler, so that it can retrieve these switches if -s is used later.
Display full paths, all options used in spawned processes, and reasons why these processes are spawned. Cancel any previous switch -q.
Verbose output. Some verbose messages are not displayed.
Verbose output. Some verbose messages may not be displayed.
Equivalent to -v.
When -we is used, any warning during the processing of the project files becomes an error and GPRbuild does not attempt any of the phases.
Switch -wn may be used to restore the default after -we or -ws.
Do not generate any warnings while processing the project files.
Switches that are accepted for compatibility with gnatmake, either on the command line or in the Builder Ada switches in the main project file:
These switches are passed to the Ada compiler.
Before performing one or several of its three phases, GPRbuild has to read the command line, obtain its configuration, and process the project files.
If GPRbuild is invoked with an invalid switch or without any project file on the command line, it will fail immediately.
Examples:
$ gprbuild -P
gprbuild: project file name missing after -P
$ gprbuild -P c_main.gpr -WW
gprbuild: illegal option "-WW"
GPRbuild looks for the configuration project file first in the current working directory, then in the default configuration project directory. If the GPRbuild executable is located in a subdirectory <prefix>/bin, then the default configuration project directory is <prefix>/share/gpr, otherwise there is no default configuration project directory.
When it has found its configuration project path, GPRbuild needs to obtain its configuration. By default, the file name of the main configuration project is default.cgpr. This default may be modified using the switch --config=...
Example:
$ gprbuild --config=my_standard.cgpr -P my_project.gpr
If GPRbuild cannot find the main configuration project on the configuration project path, then it will look for all the languages specified in the user project tree and invoke GPRconfig to create a configuration project file named auto.cgpr that is located in the object directory of the main project file.
Once it has found the configuration project, GPRbuild will process its configuration: if a single string attribute is specified in the configuration project and is not specified in a user project, then the attribute is added to the user project. If a string list attribute is specified in the configuration project then its value is prepended to the corresponding attribute in the user project.
After GPRbuild has processed its configuration, it will process the user project file or files. If these user project files are incorrect then GPRbuild will fail with the appropriate error messages:
$ gprbuild -P my_project.gpr
ada_main.gpr:3:26: "src" is not a valid directory
gprbuild: "my_project.gpr" processing failed
Once the user project files have been dealt with successfully, GPRbuild will start its processing.
If GPRbuild is invoked with -u or -U and there are one or several source file names specified on the command line, GPRbuild will compile or recompile these sources, if they are not up to date or if -f is also specified. Then GPRbuild will stop its execution.
The options/switches used to compile these sources are described in section Compilation Phase.
If GPRbuild is invoked with -u and no source file name is specified on the command line, GPRbuild will compile or recompile all the sources of the main project and then stop.
In contrast, if GPRbuild is invoked with -U, and again no source file name is specified on the command line, GPRbuild will compile or recompile all the sources of all the projects in the project tree and then stop.
When switch -c is used or when switches -b or -l are not used, GPRbuild will first compile or recompile the sources that are not up to date in all the projects in the project tree. The sources considered are:
Roots specified for
this main, all the Ada sources
Roots specified, all
the Ada sources in the closures of these Roots.
Attribute Roots takes as an index a main and a string list value. Each string in the list is the name of an Ada library unit.
Example:
for Roots ("main.c") use ("pkga", "pkgb");
Package PkgA and PkgB will be considered, and all the Ada units in their closure will also be considered.
GPRbuild will first consider each source and decide if it needs to be (re)compiled.
A source needs to be compiled in the following cases:
When a source is successfully compiled, the following files are normally created in the object directory of the project of the source:
none
The compiler for the language corresponding to the source file name is invoked with the following switches/options:
Compiler of the
project of the source
If compilation is needed, then all the options/switches, except those described as “Various other options” are written to the switch file. The switch file is a text file. Its file name is obtained by replacing the suffix of the source with .cswi. For example, the switch file for source main.adb is main.cswi and for toto.c it is toto.cswi.
If the compilation is successful, then if the creation of the dependency
file is not done during compilation but after (see configuration attribute
Compute_Dependency), then the process to create the dependency file is
invoked.
If GPRbuild is invoked with a switch -j specifying more than one compilation process, then several compilation processes for several sources of possibly different languages are spawned concurrently.
For each project file, attribute Interfaces may be declared. Its value is a list of sources or header files of the project file. For a project file extending another one, directly or indirectly, inherited sources may be in the list. When Interfaces is not declared, all sources or header files are part of the interface of the project. When Interfaces is declared, only those sources or header files are part of the interface of the project file. After a successful compilation, gprbuild checks that all imported or included sources or header files that are from an imported project are part of the interface of the imported project. If this check fails, the compilation is invalidated and the compilation artifacts (dependency, object and switches files) are deleted.
Example:
project Prj is
for Languages use ("Ada", "C");
for Interfaces use ("pkg.ads", "toto.h");
end Prj;
If a source from a project importing project Prj imports sources from Prj other than package Pkg or includes header files from Prj other than "toto.h", then its compilation will be invalidated.
The post-compilation phase has two parts: library building and program binding.
If there are libraries that need to be built or rebuilt, gprbuild will
call the library builder, specified by attribute Library_Builder.
This is generally the tool gprlib, provided with GPRbuild. If gprbuild
can determine that a library is already up to date, then the library builder
will not be called.
If there are mains specified, and for these mains there are sources of languages with a binder driver (specified by attribute Binder'Driver (<language>), then the binder driver is called for each such main, but only if it needs to.
For Ada, the binder driver is normally gprbind, which will call
the appropriate version of gnatbind, that either the one in the same
directory as the Ada compiler or the fist one found on the path.
When neither of those is appropriate, it is possible to specify to
gprbind the full path of gnatbind, using the Binder switch
--gnatbind_path=.
Example:
package Binder is
for Switches ("Ada") use ("--gnatbind_path=/toto/gnatbind");
end Binder;
If GPRbuild can determine that the artifacts from a previous post-compilation phase are already up to date, the binder driver is not called.
If there are no libraries and no binder drivers, then the post-compilation phase is empty.
When there are mains specified, either in attribute Main or on the command line, and these mains are not up to date, the linker is invoked for each main, with all the specified or implied options, including the object files generated during the post-compilation phase by the binder drivers.
If switch -jnnn is used, with nnn other than 1, gprbuild will attempt to link simultaneously up to nnn executables.
Here is a list of incompatibilities between gnatmake invoked with a project file and gprbuild:
GPRbuild requires one configuration file describing the languages and
toolchains to be used, and project files describing the
characteristics of the user project. Typically the configuration
file can be created automatically by GPRbuild based on the languages
defined in your projects and the compilers on your path. In more
involved situations — such as cross compilation, or
environments with several compilers for the same language —
you may need to control more precisely the generation of
the desired configuration of toolsets. A tool, GPRconfig, described in
Configuring with GPRconfig), offers this capability. In this
chapter most of the examples can use autoconfiguration.
GPRbuild will start its build process by trying to locate a configuration file. The following tests are performed in the specified order, and the first that matches provides the configuration file to use.
<target>-<rts>.cgpr,
<target.cgpr, <rts>.cgpr or default.cgpr is found in
the default configuration files directory, this file is used. The target
and rts parameters are specified via the --target and --RTS
switches of gprbuild. The default directory is is share/gpr
in the installation directory of gprbuild
GPR_CONFIG is tested
to check whether it contains the name of a valid configuration file. This
can either be an absolute path name or a base name that will be searched
in the same default directory as above.
--autoconf switch, then
a new configuration file is automatically generated based on the specified
target and on the list of languages specified in your projects.
GPRbuild assumes that there are known compilers on your path for each of the necessary languages. It is preferable and often necessary to manually generate your own configuration file when:
GPRconfig provides several ways of generating configuration files. By default, a simple interactive mode lists all the known compilers for all known languages. You can then select a compiler for each of the languages; once a compiler has been selected, only compatible compilers for other languages are proposed. Here are a few examples of GPRconfig invocation:
./default.cgpr), unless
-o is used.
gprconfig
gprconfig -o path/my_config.cgpr
gprbuild --config=path/my_config.cgpr
gprconfig --target=ppc-elf
gprconfig --config=Ada --config=C --batch
hi and using C for the LEON
processor.
gprconfig --target=leon-elf --config=Ada,,hi --config=C --batch -o x.cgpr
The GPRconfig tool helps you generate the configuration files for GPRbuild. It automatically detects the available compilers on your system and, after you have selected the one needed for your application, it generates the proper configuration file.
--config and --autoconf switches.
GPRconfig supports the following command line switches:
This switch indicates the target computer on which your application will be run. It is mostly useful for cross configurations. Examples include ‘ppc-elf’, ‘ppc-vx6-windows’. It can also be used in native configurations and is useful when the same machine can run different kind of compilers such as mingw32 and cygwin on Windows or x86-32 and x86-64 on GNU Linux. Since different compilers will often return a different name for those targets, GPRconfig has an extensive knowledge of which targets are compatible, and will for example accept ‘x86-linux’ as an alias for ‘i686-pc-linux-gnu’. The default target is the machine on which GPRconfig is run.
If you enter the special target ‘all’, then all compilers found on the
PATH will be displayed.
--target.
The intent of this switch is to preselect one or more compilers directly from the command line. This switch takes several optional arguments, which you can omit simply by passing the empty string. When omitted, the arguments will be computed automatically by GPRconfig.
In general, only language needs to be specified, and the first compiler on the PATH that can compile this language will be selected. As an example, for a multi-language application programmed in C and Ada, the command line would be:
--config=Ada --config=C
path is the directory that contains the compiler executable, for instance /usr/bin (and not the installation prefix /usr).
name should be one of the compiler names defined in the GPRconfig knowledge base. The list of supported names includes ‘GNAT’, ‘GCC’,.... This name is generally not needed, but can be used to distinguish among several compilers that could match the other arguments of --config.
Another possible more frequent use of name is to specify the base name of an executable. For instance, if you prefer to use a diab C compiler (executable is called dcc) instead of gcc, even if the latter appears first in the path, you could specify dcc as the name parameter.
gprconfig --config Ada,,,/usr/bin # automatic parameters
gprconfig --config C,,,/usr/bin,GCC # automatic version
gprconfig --config C,,,/usr/bin,gcc # same as above, with exec name
This switch is also the only possibility to include in your project some
languages that are not associated with a compiler. This is sometimes useful
especially when you are using environments like GPS that support project files.
For instance, if you select "Project file" as a language, the files matching
the .gpr extension will be shown in the editor, although they of course
play no role for gprbuild itself.
If this switch is specified, GPRconfig automatically selects the first
compiler matching each of the --config switches, and generates the
configuration file immediately. It will not display an interactive menu.
This specifies the name of the configuration file that will be generated.
If this switch is not specified, a default file is generated in the
installation directory of GPRbuild (assuming you have write access to
that directory), so that it is automatically picked up by GPRbuild later
on. If you select a different output file, you will need to specify it
to GPRbuild.
When you launch GPRconfig, it first searches for all compilers it can find on your PATH, that match the target specified by --target. It is recommended, although not required, that you place the compilers that you expect to use for your application in your PATH before you launch gprconfig, since that simplifies the setup.
GPRconfig then displays the list of all the compilers it has found, along with the language they can compile, the run-time they use (when applicable),.... It then waits for you to select one of the compilers. This list is sorted by language, then by order in the PATH environment variable (so that compilers that you are more likely to use appear first), then by run-time names and finally by version of the compiler. Thus the first compiler for any language is most likely the one you want to use.
You make a selection by entering the letter that appears on the line for each compiler (be aware that this letter is case sensitive). If the compiler was already selected, it is deselected.
A filtered list of compilers is then displayed: only compilers that target the same platform as the selected compiler are now shown. GPRconfig then checks whether it is possible to link sources compiled with the selected compiler and each of the remaining compilers; when linking is not possible, the compiler is not displayed. Likewise, all compilers for the same language are hidden, so that you can only select one compiler per language.
As an example, if you need to compile your application with several C compilers, you should create another language, for instance called C2, for that purpose. That will give you the flexibility to indicate in the project files which compiler should be used for which sources.
The goal of this filtering is to make it more obvious whether you have a good chance of being able to link. There is however no guarantee that GPRconfig will know for certain how to link any combination of the remaining compilers.
You can select as many compilers as are needed by your application. Once you have finished selecting the compilers, select <s>, and GPRconfig will generate the configuration file.
GPRconfig itself has no hard-coded knowledge of compilers. Thus there is no need to recompile a new version of GPRconfig when a new compiler is distributed.
All knowledge of compilers is embedded in a set of XML files called the knowledge base. Users can easily contribute to this general knowledge base, and have GPRconfig immediately take advantage of any new data.
The knowledge base contains various kinds of information:
When it is run interactively, GPRconfig searches the user's PATH for known compilers, and tries to deduce their configuration (version, supported languages, supported targets, run-times, ...). From the knowledge base GPRconfig knows how to extract the relevant information about a compiler.
This step is optional, since a user can also enter all the information manually. However, it is recommended that the knowledge base explicitly list its known compilers, to make configuration easier for end users.
When a compiler is used, depending on its version, target, run-time,..., some specific command line switches might have to be supplied. The knowledge base is a good place to store such information.
For instance, with the GNAT compiler, using the soft-float runtime should force gprbuild to use the -msoft-float compilation switch.
Linking a multi-language application often has some subtleties, and typically requires specific linker switches. These switches depend on the list of languages, the list of compilers,....
It is sometimes not possible to link together code compiled with two particular compilers. The knowledge base should store this information, so that end users are informed immediately when attempting to use such a compiler combination.
The end of this section will describe in more detail the format of this knowledge base, so that you can add your own information and have GPRconfig advantage of it.
The knowledge base is implemented as a set of XML files. None of these files has a special name, nor a special role. Instead, the user can freely create new files, and put them in the knowledge base directory, to contribute new knowledge.
The location of the knowledge base is $prefix/share/gprconfig, where $prefix is the directory in which GPRconfig was installed. Any file with extension .xml in this directory will be parsed automatically by GPRconfig at startup.
All files must have the following format:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<gprconfig>
...
</gprconfig>
The root tag must be <gprconfig>.
The remaining sections in this chapter will list the valid XML tags that can be used to replace the “...” code above. These tags can either all be placed in a single XML file, or split across several files.
One of the XML tags that can be specified as a child of <gprconfig> is
<compiler_description>. This node and its children describe one of
the compilers known to GPRconfig. The tool uses them when it
initially looks for all compilers known on the user's PATH
environment variable.
This is optional information, but simplifies the use of GPRconfig, since the user is then able to omit some parameters from the --config command line argument, and have them automatically computed.
The <compiler_description> node doesn't accept any XML
attribute. However, it accepts a number of child tags that explain
how to query the various attributes of the compiler. The child tags
are evaluated (if necessary) in the same order as they are documented below.
<name>compiler_description node.
<compiler_description>
<name>GNAT</name>
</compiler_description>
<executable>In some cases, the tools have a common suffix, but a prefix that might depend
on the target. For instance, GNAT uses ‘gnatmake’ for native platforms,
but ‘powerpc-wrs-vxworks-gnatmake’ for cross-compilers to VxWorks.
Most of the compiler description is the same, however.
For such cases, the value of the executable node is considered as
beginning a regular expression. The tag also accepts an optional
attribute prefix,
which is an integer indicating the parenthesis group that contains the prefix.
In the following example, you obtain the version of the GNAT compiler by running
either gnatls or powerpc-wrs-vxworks-gnatls, depending on
the name of the executable that was found.
The regular expression needs to match the whole name of the file, i.e. it contains an implicit “^” at the start, and an implicit “$” at the end. Therefore if you specify ‘.*gnatmake’ as the regexp, it will not match ‘gnatmake-debug’.
A special case is when this node is empty (but it must be specified!). In such a case, you must also specify the language (see <language> below) as a simple string. It is then assumed that the specified language does not require a compiler. In the configurations file (see Configurations), you can test whether that language was specified on the command line by using a filter such as
<compilers>
<compiler language="name"/>
</compilers>
<executable prefix="1">(powerpc-wrs-vxworks-)?gnatmake</executable>
<version><external>${PREFIX}gnatls -v</external></version>
GPRconfig searches in all directories listed on the PATH for such
an executable. When one is found, the rest of the <compiler_description>
children are checked to know whether the compiler is valid. The directory
in which the executable was found becomes the “current directory” for
the remaining XML children.
<target>If this isn't specified, the compiler will always be considered as matching
on the current target.
<version><variable name="varname"><languages>The value returned by the system will be split into words. As a result, if the returned value is “ada,c,c++”, there are three languages supported by the compiler (and three entries are added to the menu when using GPRconfig interactively).
If the value is a simple string, the words must be comma-separated, so that
you can specify languages whose names include spaces. However, if the actual
value is computed from the result of a command, the words can also be
space-separated, to be compatible with more tools.
<runtimes><languages>.
This node accepts one attribute, "default", which contains a list
of comma-separated names of runtimes. It is used to sort the runtimes when
listing which compilers were found on the PATH.
As a special case, gprconfig will merge two runtimes if the XML nodes refer to the same directories after normalization and resolution of links. As such, on Unix systems, the "adalib" link to "rts-native/adalib" (or similar) will be ignored and only the "native" runtime will be displayed.
A number of the XML nodes described above can contain one or more children,
and specify how to query a value from an executable. Here is the list of
valid contents for these nodes. The <directory> and <external>
children can be repeated multiple times, and the <filter> and
<must_match> nodes will be applied to each of these. The final
value of the external value is the concatenation of the computation for each
of the <directory> and <external> nodes.
A simple string given in the node indicates a constant. For instance, the list of supported languages might be defined as:
<compiler_description>
<name>GNAT</name>
<executable>gnatmake</executable>
<languages>Ada</languages>
</compiler_description>
for the GNAT compiler, since this is an Ada-only compiler.
Variables can be referenced in simple strings.
<getenv name="variable" />
If the contents of the node is a <getenv> child, the value of
the environment variable variable is returned. If the variable is
not defined, this is an error and the compiler is ignored.
<compiler_description>
<name>GCC-WRS</name>
<executable prefix="1">cc(arm|pentium)</executable>
<version>
<getenv name="WIND_BASE" />
</version>
</compile_description>
<external>command</external>
If the contents of the node is an <external> child, this indicates
that a command should be run on the system.
When the command is run, the current directory (i.e., the one that contains
the executable found through the <executable> node), is placed first
on the PATH. The output of the command is returned and may be later
filtered. The command is not executed through a shell; therefore you cannot
use output redirection, pipes, or other advanced features.
For instance, extracting the target processor from gcc can be done with:
<version>
<external>gcc -dumpmachine</external>
</version>
Since the PATH has been modified, we know that the gcc command
that is executed is the one from the same directory as the <external>
node.
Variables are substituted in command.
<grep regexp="regexp" group="0" />
This node must come after the previously described ones. It is used to further filter the output. The previous output is matched against the regular expression regexp and the parenthesis group specified by group is returned. By default, group is 0, which indicates the whole output of the command.
For instance, extracting the version number from gcc can be done with:
<version>
<external>gcc -v</external>
<grep regexp="^gcc version (S+)" group="1" />
</version>
<directory group="0" contents="">regexp</directory>
If the contents of the node is a <directory> child, this
indicates that GPRconfig should find all the files matching the
regular expression. Regexp is a path relative to the directory that contains
the <executable> file, and should use unix directory separators
(ie '/'), since the actual directory will be converted into this format
before the match, for system independence of the knowledge base.
The group attribute indicates which parenthesis group should be returned. It defaults to 0 which indicates the whole matched path. If this attribute is a string rather than an integer, then it is the value returned.
regexp can be any valid regular expression. This will only match a directory or file name, not a subdirectory. Remember to quote special characters, including “.”, if you do not mean to use a regexp.
The optional attribute contents can be used to indicate that the contents of the file should be read. The first line that matches the regular expression given by contents will be used as a file path instead of the file matched by regexp. This is in general used on platforms that do not have symbolic links, and a file is used instead of a symbolic link. In general, this will work better than group specifies a string rather than a parenthesis group, since the latter will match the path matched by regexp, not the one read in the file.
For instance, finding the list of supported runtimes for the GNAT compiler is done with:
<runtimes>
<directory group="1">
../lib/gcc/${TARGET}/.*/rts-(.*)/adainclude
</directory>
<directory group="default">
../lib/gcc/${TARGET}/.*/adainclude
</directory>
</runtimes>
Note the second node, which matches the default run-time, and displays it as such.
<filter>value1,value2,...</filter>
This node must come after one of the previously described ones. It is used to further filter the output. The previous output is split into words (it is considered as a comma-separated or space-separated list of words), and only those words in ‘value1’, ‘value2’,... are kept.
For instance, the gcc compiler will return a variety of supported languages, including “ada”. If we do not want to use it as an Ada compiler we can specify:
<languages>
<external regexp="languages=(S+)" group="1">gcc -v</external>
<filter>c,c++,fortran</filter>
</languages>
<must_match>regexp</must_match>
If this node is present, then the filtered output is compared with the specified regular expression. If no match is found, then the executable is not stored in the list of known compilers.
For instance, if you want to have a <compiler_description> tag
specific to an older version of GCC, you could write:
<version>
<external regexp="gcc version (S+)"
group="1">gcc -v </external>
<must_match>2.8.1</must_match>
</version>
Other versions of gcc will not match this <compiler_description>
node.
The various compiler attributes defined above are made available as
variables in the rest of the XML files. Each of these variables can be used
in the value of the various nodes (for instance in <directory>),
and in the configurations (see Configuration).
A variable is referenced by ${name} where name is either
a user variable or a predefined variable. An alternate reference is
$name where name is a sequence of alpha numeric characters or
underscores. Finally $$ is replaced by a simple $.
User variables are defined by <variable> nodes and may override
predefined variables. To avoid a possible override use lower case names.
The variables are used in two contexts: either in a
<compiler_description> node, in which case the variable refers to
the compiler we are describing, or within a <configuration> node.
In the latter case, and since there might be several compilers selected,
you need to further specify the variable by adding in parenthesis the
language of the compiler you are interested in.
For instance, the following is invalid:
<configuration>
<compilers>
<compiler name="GNAT" />
</compilers>
<targets negate="true">
<target name="^powerpc-elf$"/>
</targets>
<config>
package Compiler is
for Driver ("Ada") use "${PATH}gcc"; -- Invalid !
end Compiler;
</config>
</configuration>
The trouble with the above is that if you are using multiple languages
like C and Ada, both compilers will match the "negate" part, and therefore
there is an ambiguity for the value of ${PATH}. To prevent such
issues, you need to use the following syntax instead when inside a
<configuration> node:
for Driver ("Ada") use "${PATH(ada)}gcc"; -- Correct
Predefined variables are always in upper case. Here is the list of predefined variables
<executable>. It
only contains the basename, not the directory information.
<target> node. This is of course not available when computing the
target itself.
This variable takes the language of the compiler as an optional index when
in a <configuration> block: if the language is specified, the target
returned by that specific compiler is used; otherwise, the normalized target
common to all the selected compilers will be returned (target normalization
is also described in the knowledge base's XML files).
<executable> node.
<executable>. It always ends with a directory separator.
RUNTIME_DIR always end with a directory separator.
<configuration> node.
If a variable is not defined, an error message is issued and the variable is substituted by an empty string.
The second type of information stored in the knowledge base are the chunks of gprbuild configuration files.
Each of these chunks is also placed in an XML node that provides optional filters. If all the filters match, then the chunk will be merged with other similar chunks and placed in the final configuration file that is generated by GPRconfig.
For instance, it is possible to indicate that a chunk should only be
included if the GNAT compiler with the soft-float runtime is used. Such
a chunk can for instance be used to ensure that Ada sources are always
compiled with the -msoft-float command line switch.
GPRconfig does not perform sophisticated merging of chunks. It simply groups packages together. For example, if the two chunks are:
chunk1:
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use ("foo");
end Language_Processing;
chunk2:
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use ("bar");
end Language_Processing;
Then the final configuration file will look like:
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use ("foo");
for Attr1 use ("bar");
end Language_Processing;
As a result, to avoid conflicts, it is recommended that the chunks be written so that they easily collaborate together. For instance, to obtain something equivalent to
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use ("foo", "bar");
end Language_Processing;
the two chunks above should be written as:
chunk1:
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use Language_Processing'Attr1 & ("foo");
end Language_Processing;
chunk2:
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use Language_Processing'Attr1 & ("bar");
end Language_Processing;
The chunks are described in a <configuration> XML node. The most
important child of such a node is <config>, which contains the
chunk itself. For instance, you would write:
<configuration>
... list of filters, see below
<config>
package Language_Processing is
for Attr1 use Language_Processing'Attr1 & ("foo");
end Language_Processing;
</config>
</configuration>
If <config> is an empty node (i.e., ‘<config/>’ or
‘<config></config>’) was used, then the combination of selected
compilers will be reported as invalid, in the sense that code
compiled with these compilers cannot be linked together. As a result,
GPRconfig will not create the configuration file.
The special variables (see GPRconfig variable substitution) are also substituted in the chunk. That allows you to compute some attributes of the compiler (its path, the runtime,...), and use them when generating the chunks.
The filters themselves are of course defined through XML tags, and can be any of:
<compilers negate="false"><compiler> children. The
<compilers> filter matches if any of its children match.
However, you can have several <compilers> filters, in which
case they must all match. This can be used to include linker switches
chunks. For instance, the following code would be used to describe
the linker switches to use when GNAT 5.05 or 5.04 is used in addition to
g++ 3.4.1:
<configuration>
<compilers>
<compiler name="GNAT" version="5.04" />
<compiler name="GNAT" version="5.05" />
</compilers>
<compilers>
<compiler name="G++" version="3.4.1" />
</compilers>
...
</configuration>
If the attribute negate is ‘true’, then the meaning of this filter is inverted, and it will match if none of its children matches.
The format of the <compiler> is the following:
<compiler name="name" version="..."
runtime="..." language="..." />
The name and language attributes, when specified, match
the corresponding attributes used in the <compiler_description>
children. All other attributes are regular expressions, which are matched
against the corresponding selected compilers. When an attribute is not
specified, it will always match. Matching is done in a case-insensitive
manner.
For instance, to check a GNAT compiler in the 5.x family, use:
<compiler name="GNAT" version="5.d+" />
<hosts negate="false"><host> children. It matches when
any of its children matches. You can specify only one <hosts>
node.
The format of <host> is a node with a single mandatory attribute
name, which is a regexp matched against the architecture on
which GPRconfig is running. The name of the architecture was
computed by configure when GPRconfig was built. Note that
the regexp might match a substring of the host name, so you might want
to surround it with "^" and "$" so that it only matches the whole host
name (for instance, "elf" would match "powerpc-elf", but "^elf$" would
not).
If the negate attribute is ‘true’, then the meaning of this filter is inverted, and it will match when none of its children matches.
For instance, to active a chunk only if the compiler is running on an intel linux machine, use:
<hosts>
<host name="i.86-.*-linux(-gnu)?" />
</hosts>
<targets negate="false"><target> children. It behaves
exactly like <hosts>, but matches against the architecture
targeted by the selected compilers. For instance, to activate a chunk
only when the code is targeted for linux, use:
If the negate attribute is ‘true’, then the meaning of this filter is inverted, and it will match when none of its children matches.
<targets>
<target name="i.86-.*-linux(-gnu)?" />
</targets>
A text file using the project file syntax. It defines languages and their characteristics as well as toolchains for those languages and their characteristics.
GPRbuild needs to have a configuration file to know the different characteristics of the toolchains that can be used to compile sources and build libraries and executables.
A configuration file is a special kind of project file: it uses the same syntax as a standard project file. Attributes in the configuration file define the configuration. Some of these attributes have a special meaning in the configuration.
The default name of the configuration file, when not specified to GPRbuild by switches --config= or --autoconf= is default.cgpr. Although the name of the configuration file can be any valid file name, it is recommended that its suffix be .cgpr (for Configuration GNAT Project), so that it cannot be confused with a standard project file which has the suffix .gpr.
When default.cgpr cannot be found in the configuration project path, GPRbuild invokes GPRconfig to create a configuration file.
In the following description of the attributes, when an attribute is an
indexed attribute and its index is a language name, for example
Spec_Suffix (<language>), then the name of the language is case insensitive.
For example, both C and c are allowed.
Any attribute may appear in a configuration project file. All attributes in a configuration project file are inherited by each user project file in the project tree. However, usually only the attributes listed below make sense in the configuration project file.
Specifies the name of the language of the immediate sources of a project when
attribute Languages is not declared in the project. If attribute
Default_Language is not declared in the configuration file, then each user
project file in the project tree must have an attribute Languages declared,
unless it extends another project. Example:
for Default_Language use "ada";
Specifies a “run path option”; i.e., an option to use when linking an executable or a shared library to indicate the path (Rpath) where to look for other libraries. The value of this attribute is a string list. When linking an executable or a shared library, the search path is concatenated with the last string in the list, which may be an empty string.
Example:
for Run_Path_Option use ("-Wl,-rpath,");
Specifies the string to be used in an Rpath to indicate the directory of the executable, allowing then to have Rpaths specified as relative paths.
Example:
for Run_Path_Origin use "$ORIGIN";
Specifies a version for a toolchain, as a single string. This toolchain version is passed to the library builder. Example:
for Toolchain_Version ("Ada") use "GNAT 6.1";
This attribute is used by GPRbind to decide on the names of the shared GNAT runtime libraries.
Specifies as a single string a description of a toolchain. This attribute is not directly used by GPRbuild or its auxiliary tools (GPRbind and GPRlib) but may be used by other tools, for example GPS. Example:
for Toolchain_Description ("C") use "gcc version 4.1.3 20070425";
Specifies the level of support for library project. If this attribute is not
specified, then library projects are not supported. The only potential values
for this attribute are none, static_only and full. Example:
for Library_Support use "full";
Specifies the name of the executable for the library builder. Example:
for Library_Builder use "/.../gprlib";
Specifies the name of the executable of the archive builder with the minimum options, if any. Example:
for Archive_Builder use ("ar", "cr");
Specifies the name of the executable of the archive indexer with the minimum options, if any. If this attribute is not specified, then there is no archive indexer. Example:
for Archive_Indexer use ("ranlib");
Specifies the suffix of the archives. If this attribute is not specified, then the suffix of the archives is defaulted to .a. Example:
for Archive_Suffix use ".olb"; -- for VMS
Specifies the name of the executable of the partial linker with the options to be used, if any. If this attribute is not specified, then there is no partial linking. Example:
for Library_Partial_Linker use ("gcc", "-nostdlib", "-Wl,-r", "-o");
Specifies the prefix of the file names of shared libraries. When this attribute
is not specified, the prefix is lib. Example:
for Shared_Library_Prefix use ""; -- for Windows, if needed
Specifies the suffix of the file names of shared libraries. When this attribute is not specified, the suffix is .so. Example:
for Shared_Library_Suffix use ".dll"; -- for Windows
Specifies if symbolic links are supported by the platforms. The possible values
of this attribute are "false" (the default) and "true". When this attribute is
not specified, symbolic links are not supported.
for Symbolic_Link_Supported use "true";
Specifies if major and minor IDs are supported for shared libraries.
The possible values of this attribute are "false" (the default) and "true".
When this attribute is not specified, major and minor IDs are not supported.
for Library_Major_Minor_ID_Supported use "True";
Specifies if library auto initialization is supported. The possible values of
this attribute are "false" (the default) and "true". When this attribute is not
specified, library auto initialization is not supported.
for Library_Auto_Init_Supported use "true";
Specifies the minimum options to be used when building a shared library. These options are put in the appropriate section in the library exchange file when the library builder is invoked. Example:
for Shared_Library_Minimum_Switches use ("-shared");
Specifies the option or options to be used when a library version is used. These options are put in the appropriate section in the library exchange file when the library builder is invoked. Example:
for Library_Version_Switches use ("-Wl,-soname,");
Specifies the directory for the runtime libraries for the language. Example:
for Runtime_Library_Dir ("Ada") use "/path/to/adalib";
This attribute is used by GPRlib to link shared libraries with Ada code.
Attributes in package Naming of a configuration file specify defaults. These
attributes may be used in user project files to replace these defaults.
The following attributes usually appear in package Naming of a configuration
file:
Specifies the default suffix for a “spec” or header file. Examples:
for Spec_Suffix ("Ada") use ".ads";
for Spec_Suffix ("C") use ".h";
for Spec_Suffix ("C++") use ".hh";
Specifies the default suffix for a “body” or a source file. Examples:
for Body_Suffix ("Ada") use ".adb";
for Body_Suffix ("C") use ".c";
for Body_Suffix ("C++") use ".cpp";
Specifies the suffix for a subunit source file (separate) in Ada. If attribute
Separate_Suffix is not specified, then the default suffix of subunit source
files is the same as the default suffix for body source files. Example:
for Separate_Suffix use ".sep";
Specifies the casing of spec and body files in a unit based language
(such as Ada) to know how to map a unit name to its file name. The values for
this attribute may only be "lowercase", "UPPERCASE" and "Mixedcase".
The default, when attribute Casing is not specified is lower case.
This attribute rarely needs to be specified, since on
platforms where file names are not case sensitive (such as Windows or VMS)
the default (lower case) will suffice.
Specifies the string to replace a dot (“.”) in unit names of a unit based
language (such as Ada) to obtain its file name. If there is any unit based
language in the configuration, attribute Dot_Replacement must be declared.
Example:
for Dot_Replacement use "-";
Specifies the default executable suffix. If no attribute Executable_Suffix is
declared, then the default executable suffix for the host platform is used.
Example:
for Executable_Suffix use ".exe";
Specifies the name of the executable for the compiler of a language. The single string value of this attribute may be an absolute path or a relative path. If relative, then the execution path is searched. Specifying the empty string for this attribute indicates that there is no compiler for the language.
Examples:
for Driver ("C++") use "g++";
for Driver ("Ada") use "/.../bin/gcc";
for Driver ("Project file") use "";
Specifies the minimum options that must be used when invoking the compiler of a language. Examples:
for Required_Switches ("C") use ("-c", "-x", "c");
for Required_Switches ("Ada") use ("-c", "-x", "ada", "-gnatA");
Specifies the option or options that must be used when compiling a source of a language to be put in a shared library. Example:
for PIC_Option ("C") use ("-fPIC");
Specifies the switch or switches to be used to specify a mapping file to the
compiler. When attribute Mapping_File_Switches is not declared, then no
mapping file is specified to the compiler. The value of this attribute is a
string list. The path name of the mapping file is concatenated with the last
string in the string list, which may be empty. Example:
for Mapping_File_Switches ("Ada") use ("-gnatem=");
Specifies, for unit based languages that support mapping files, the suffix in the mapping file that needs to be added to the unit name for specs. Example:
for Mapping_Spec_Suffix ("Ada") use "%s";
Specifies, for unit based languages that support mapping files, the suffix in the mapping file that needs to be added to the unit name for bodies. Example:
for Mapping_Spec_Suffix ("Ada") use "%b";
In the value of config file attributes defined below, there are some placeholders that GPRbuild will replace. These placeholders are:
Attributes:
Specifies the switch or switches to be used to specify a configuration file to
the compiler. When attribute Config_File_Switches is not declared, then no
config file is specified to the compiler. The value of this attribute is a
string list. The path name of the config file is concatenated with the last
string in the string list, which may be empty. Example:
for Config_File_Switches ("Ada") use ("-gnatec=");
Specifies the line to be put in a config file to indicate the file name of a body. Example:
for Config_Body_File_Name ("Ada") use
"pragma Source_File_Name_Project (%u, Body_File_Name => ""%f"");";
Specifies the line to be put in a config file to indicate the file name of a spec. Example:
for Config_Spec_File_Name ("Ada") use
"pragma Source_File_Name_Project (%u, Spec_File_Name => ""%f"");";
Specifies the line to be put in a config file to indicate a body file name pattern. Example:
for Config_Body_File_Name_Pattern ("Ada") use
"pragma Source_File_Name_Project " &
" (Body_File_Name => ""*%b""," &
" Casing => %c," &
" Dot_Replacement => ""%d"");";
Specifies the line to be put in a config file to indicate a spec file name pattern. Example:
for Config_Spec_File_Name_Pattern ("Ada") use
"pragma Source_File_Name_Project " &
" (Spec_File_Name => ""*%s""," &
" Casing => %c," &
" Dot_Replacement => ""%d"");";
Specifies, for languages that support config files, if several config files
may be indicated to the compiler, or not. This attribute may have only two
values: "true" or "false" (case insensitive). The default, when this attribute
is not specified, is "false". When the value "true" is specified for this
attribute, GPRbuild will concatenate the config files, if there are more than
one. Example:
for Config_File_Unique ("Ada") use "True";
There are two dependency-related attributes: Dependency_Switches and
Dependency_Driver. If neither of these two attributes are specified for
a language other than Ada, then the source needs to be (re)compiled if
the object file does not exist or the source file is more recent than
the object file or the switch file.
For languages other than Ada, attribute Dependency_Switches specifies
the option or options to add to the compiler invocation so that it creates
the dependency file at the same time. The value of attribute Dependency_Option
is a string list. The name of the dependency file is added to the last string
in the list, which may be empty. Example:
for Dependency_Switches ("C") use ("-Wp,-MD,");
With these Dependency_Switches, when compiling file.c the compiler will be
invoked with the option -Wp,-MD,file.d.
Specifies the command and options to create a dependency file for a source. The full path name of the source is appended to the last string of the string list value. Example:
for Dependency_Driver ("C") use ("gcc", "-E", "-Wp,-M", "");
Usually, attributes Dependency_Switches and Dependency_Driver are not both
specified.
Specifies the option or options to use when invoking the compiler to indicate that a directory is part of the source search path. The value of this attribute is a string list. The full path name of the directory is concatenated with the last string in the string list, which may be empty. Example:
for Include_Switches ("C") use ("-I");
Attribute Include_Switches is ignored if either one of the attributes
Include_Path or Include_Path_File are specified.
Specifies the name of an environment variable that is used by the compiler to get the source search path. The value of the environment variable is the source search path to be used by the compiler. Example:
for Include_Path ("C") use "CPATH";
for Include_Path ("Ada") use "ADA_INCLUDE_PATH";
Attribute Include_Path is ignored if attribute Include_Path_File is declared
for the language.
Specifies the name of an environment variable that is used by the compiler to get the source search path. The value of the environment variable is the path name of a text file that contains the path names of the directories of the source search path. Example:
for Include_Path_File ("Ada") use "ADA_PRJ_INCLUDE_FILE";
Specifies the name of the executable of the binder driver. When this attribute is not specified, there is no binder for the language. Example:
for Driver ("Ada") use "/.../gprbind";
Specifies the minimum options to be used when invoking the binder driver. These options are put in the appropriate section in the binder exchange file, one option per line. Example:
for Required_Switches ("Ada") use ("--prefix=<prefix>");
Specifies the prefix to be used in the name of the binder exchange file. Example:
for Prefix ("C++") use ("c__");
Specifies the name of an environment variable that is used by the compiler to get the object search path. The value of the environment variable is the object search path to be used by the compiler. Example:
for Objects_Path ("Ada") use "ADA_OBJECTS_PATH";
Specifies the name of an environment variable that is used by the compiler to get the object search path. The value of the environment variable is the path name of a text file that contains the path names of the directories of the object search path. Example:
for Objects_Path_File ("Ada") use "ADA_PRJ_OBJECTS_FILE";
Specifies the name of the executable of the linker. Example:
for Driver use "g++";
Specifies the minimum options to be used when invoking the linker. Those options are happened at the end of the link command so that potentially conflicting user options take precedence.
Specifies the option to be used when the linker is asked to produce a map file.
for Map_File_Option use "-Wl,-Map,";
Specifies the maximum length of the command line to invoke the linker. If this maximum length is reached, a response file will be used to shorten the length of the command line. This is only taken into account when attribute Response_File_Format is specified.
for Max_Command_Line_Length use "8000";
Specifies the format of the response file to be generated when the maximum length of the command line to invoke the linker is reached. This is only taken into account when attribute Max_Command_Line_Length is specified.
The allowed case-insensitive values are:
for Response_File_Format use "GCC_GNU";
for Response_File_Switches use ("-Wl,-f,");
The GPRclean tool removes the files created by GPRbuild.
At a minimum, to invoke GPRclean you must specify a main project file
in a command such as gprclean proj.gpr or gprclean -P proj.gpr.
Examples of invocation of GPRclean:
gprclean -r prj1.gpr
gprclean -c -P prj2.gpr
The switches for GPRclean are:
Use name as the slave's environment directory instead of the default one. This options is only used in distributed mode.
This specifies a configuration project file name that already exists or will be created automatically. Option --autoconf= cannot be specified more than once. If the configuration project file specified with --autoconf= exists, then it is used. Otherwise, GPRconfig is invoked to create it automatically.
The GPRinstall tool installs projects. With GPRinstall it is not
needed to create complex makefiles to install the components. This
also removes the need for OS specific commands (like cp,
mkdir on UNIXs) and so makes the installation process easier on
all supported platforms.
After building a project it is often needed to install the project to make it accessible to other projects. GPRinstall installs only what is necessary and nothing more. That is for a library projects the library itself is installed with the corresponding ALI files for Ada sources. But the object code is not installed as not needed. Also if the Ada specs are installed the bodies are not as not needed in most cases. The cases where the bodies are required (if the spec has inline routines or is a generic) are properly detected by GPRinstall.
Furthermore, we can note that GPRinstall handles the pre-processed sources. So it installs the correct variant of the source after resolving the pre-processing directives.
The parts of a project that can be installed are:
Moreover, GPRinstall will create, when needed, a project to use the installed sources, objects or library. By default, this project file is installed in the GPRbuild's default path location so that it can be "with"ed easily without further configuration. The installation process keeps record of every file installed for easy and safe removal.
At a minimum, to invoke GPRinstall you must specify a main project file
in a command such as gprinstall proj.gpr or
gprinstall -P proj.gpr.
Examples of invocation of GPRinstall:
gprinstall prj1.gpr
gprinstall -r --prefix=/my/root/install -P prj2.gpr
GPRinstall will record the installation under the install name
which is by default the name of the project without the
extension. That is above the project install names are prj1 and
prj2.
The installation name can be specified with the option
--install-name. This makes it possible to record the
installation of multiple projects under the same name. This is handy
if an application comes with a library and a set of tools built with
multiple projects. In this case we may want to record the installation
under the same name.
Examples of installation under the same name:
gprinstall --install-name=myapp lib.gpr
gprinstall --install-name=myapp --mode=usage tools/tools.gpr
Note the --mode=usage option above. This tells GPRinstall to
only install the executable built as part of the project.
It is possible to uninstall a project by using the --uninstall
option. In this case we just pass the install name to GPRinstall:
gprinstall --uninstall prj1
gprinstall --uninstall prj2
And both lib.gpr and tools.gpr above will be uninstalled with:
gprinstall --uninstall myapp
Note that GPRinstall does not deal with dependencies between projects.
The switches for GPRinstall are:
This specifies a configuration project file name that already exists or will be created automatically. Option --autoconf= cannot be specified more than once. If the configuration project file specified with --autoconf= exists, then it is used. Otherwise, GPRconfig is invoked to create it automatically.
default. Using this option it is possible to install different
builds (using different configuration, options, etc...) of the same
project. The given name will be used by client to select which build
they want to use (link against).
<PROJECT_NAME>_BUILD.
path corresponds to parent directory
where gprinstall is found.
include/<projet_name>[.<build-name>]
lib/<projet_name>[.<build-name>]
bin.
share/gpr.
This indicates that the real directories (except the source directories) are subdirectories of the directories specified in the project files. This applies in particular to object directories, library directories and exec directories. If the directories do not exist, they are created automatically. It is expected that the sub-dir option value here is the one used with gprbuild.
For large projects the compilation time can become a limitation in the development cycle. To cope with that, GPRbuild supports distributed compilation.
In the distributed mode, the local machine (called the build master) compile locally but also sends compilation requests to some remote machines (called the build slaves). The compilation process can use one or more build slaves. Once the compilation phase is done, the build master will conduct the binding and linking phases locally.
The configuration process to be able to use the distributed compilation support is the following:
There is two ways for the slaves to get access to the sources of the project:
This is the default protocol use. In this case the build slaves must have the rsync tool installed. It is also required that the user building have a password-less access to the machine by installing the proper RSA public key on the build slaves. This is also a way to control who can access such or such build slaves.
In this mode, the build slaves will get a copy of the project sources locally. At the end of the compilation the compilation artifacts (object code) will be synchronized back to the build master for the binding and linking phases.
Note that the local copy of the sources is kept after the compilation is over. This means that the second time a project is compiled only the new or changed sources are copied. This incremental synchronization done by rsync is really welcome on large project.
There is no external tools to install. This is using the GPRbuild internal protocol which communicates directly with the slaves.
Note that different slaves can use different protocols.
An optional port number can be specified at the end of the slave, for example: gpr://comp2.mydomain.com:9876. The same port number must then be specified on the command line of gprslave.
This Remote package is to be placed into the project file that is passed to GPRbuild to build the application.
The Root_Dir default value is the project's directory. This attribute designates the sources root directory. That is, the directory from which all the sources are to be found to build the application. If the project passed to GPRbuild to build the application is not at the top-level directory but in a direct sub-directory the Remote package should be:
package Remote is
for Root_Dir use "..";
end Remote;
The build master will communicate with each build slave with a specific driver in charge of running the compilation process and returning statuses. This driver is gprslave, see GPRslave.
The requirement for the slaves are:
When all the requirement are set, just launch the slave driver:
$ gprslave
When all this is done, the remote compilation can be used simply by running GPRbuild in distributed mode from the build master:
$ gprbuild --distributed=gpr://comp1.xyz.com,comp2.xyz.com prj.gpr
The build slaves are specified as URL with the following form:
[protocol://]<machine_name>[:port]
Where protocol is rsync or gpr as described above. And the default protocol is rsync.
This is the slave driver in charge of running the compilation jobs as request by the build master. One instance of this tool must be launched in each build slaves referenced in the project file.
Compilations for a specific project is conducted under a sub-directory
from where the slave is launched by default. This can be overriden
with the -d option below.
The current options are:
The default for N is the number of cores.
The default value is 8484. The same port must be specified for the
build slaves on GPRbuild command line.
Copyright © 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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ADA_PROJECT_PATH: Project DependenciesArtifacts: InstallationBody: Naming SchemesBody_Suffix: Naming SchemesCasing: Naming SchemesDefault_Switches: Tools Options in Project FilesDot_Replacement: Naming SchemesExcluded_Source_Dirs: Source Files and DirectoriesExcluded_Source_Files: Project ExtensionExcluded_Source_Files: Source Files and DirectoriesExcluded_Source_List_File: Project ExtensionExcluded_Source_List_File: Source Files and DirectoriesExec_Dir: Object and Exec DirectoryExecutable: Executable File NamesExecutable_Suffix: Executable File NamesExternal: Syntax of aggregate projectsexternal: Scenarios in ProjectsExternally_Built: Project DependenciesGlobal_Compilation_Switches: package Builder in aggregate projectsGlobal_Compilation_Switches: Global AttributesGlobal_Config_File: package Builder in aggregate projectsGlobal_Configuration_Pragmas: package Builder in aggregate projectsGlobal_Configuration_Pragmas: Global AttributesGPR_PROJECT_PATH: Project DependenciesGPR_PROJECT_PATH_FILE: Project DependenciesIgnore_Source_Sub_Dirs: Source Files and DirectoriesImplementation: Naming SchemesImplementation_Exceptions: Naming SchemesImplementation_Suffix: Naming SchemesLanguages: Source Files and DirectoriesLeading_Library_Options: Building LibrariesLibrary_ALI_Dir: Building LibrariesLibrary_Auto_Init: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Dir: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Dir: Building LibrariesLibrary_GCC: Building LibrariesLibrary_Interface: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Kind: Building LibrariesLibrary_Name: Building LibrariesLibrary_Options: Building LibrariesLibrary_Reference_Symbol_File: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Src_Dir: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Standalone: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Symbol_File: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Symbol_Policy: Stand-alone Library ProjectsLibrary_Version: Building LibrariesLinker_Options: Building LibrariesLocal_Configuration_Pragmas: Tools Options in Project FilesLocally_Removed_Files: Source Files and DirectoriesMain: Main SubprogramsObject_Dir: Object and Exec DirectoryPrefix: InstallationProject_Files: Syntax of aggregate projectsProject_Path: Syntax of aggregate projectsRoot_Dir: Distributed supportSeparate_Suffix: Naming SchemesSource_Dirs: Source Files and DirectoriesSource_Files: Source Files and DirectoriesSource_List_File: Source Files and DirectoriesSpec: Naming SchemesSpec_Suffix: Naming SchemesSpecification: Naming SchemesSpecification_Exceptions: Naming SchemesSpecification_Suffix: Naming SchemesSwitches: package Builder in aggregate projectsSwitches: Tools Options in Project Files