AdaCore Launches GNAT Pro 6.2

AdaCore, leading provider of Ada tools and support, today announced GNAT Pro 6.2, the latest major release of its flagship GNAT Pro Ada development environment. This new release is now available on 18 native and 28 cross platforms. It offers over 130 new features, including increased support for code coverage and source-to-object traceability, which are important for safety-critical and high-reliability application development.”GNAT Pro 6.2 incorporates important enhancements to the underlying GCC-based compiler technology while also offering well over a hundred specific new features, almost all of which are based on user requests,” said Robert Dewar, President and CEO of AdaCore. “The result is a production-quality Ada development environment and toolset that customers can use in domains ranging from safety-critical small-footprint embedded programs to large-scale enterprise systems.”

“This latest version continues AdaCore’s tradition of providing annual major releases of GNAT Pro on nearly 150 different machine-OS configurations,” said Cyrille Comar, Managing Director, AdaCore EU. “The portability of both the Ada language and the GNAT Pro technology makes it possible for us to offer the product on native platforms running operating systems such as Windows, GNU/Linux, and VMS, and in cross environments targeted to real-time operating systems including VxWorks and LynxOS.”

Release Adds New Technology, Advanced Features, New Tools

As a general upgrade to the underlying technology, the GNAT Pro compiler back end is now based on GCC 4.3, which brings improved code generation, and the debug engine is now based on GDB 6.8, which provides better debugger performance. Complementing these enhancements are specific features including a more efficient implementation of stack checks, overflow checks, and validity checks, and new attributes and pragmas for use with generics. GNAT Pro 6.2 also includes features for associating pre- and post-conditions with subprograms and for selectively enabling or disabling groups of assertions.

Several existing tools have been enhanced. As an example GNATcheck, a coding standard checker, now supports additional verification rules that are especially useful to teams developing high-reliability software.

GNAT Pro 6.2 has added two new tools – the GNAT Ada Java Interfacing Suite (GNAT AJIS) and GNAT Components Collection (GNATcoll). GNAT AJIS allows users to combine natively compiled Ada code with Java applications that run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), through the Java Native Interface (JNI). Using GNAT AJIS, Java code can call natively-compiled Ada, and Ada programs can call Java, in a type-safe manner and without the need for users to write low-level JNI-based “glue” code. GNATcoll is a suite of reusable software components comprising packages that AdaCore developed for the implementation of the GNAT compiler and toolset but which are of general utility.

Also available with GNAT Pro 6.2 is GPS 4.3, the latest version of AdaCore’s extensible GNAT Programming Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Among other new features, GPS 4.3 allows use of multiple versions of the same toolchain, for example an older baselined version of the GNAT Pro compiler for code generation, and a newer version of the GNAT Pro technology for code browsing. The redesigned builder module enables full customization, aiding development flexibility, and the improved documentation generator includes support for predefined and user-defined tags. Additional information on this new version of GPS can be found at the AdaCore web site at: http://www.adacore.com/2008/11/19/gps-4-3

Pricing and Availability
GNAT Pro 6.2 is available immediately on most supported platforms. Please contact AdaCore ([email protected]) for further details on pricing and supported configurations.

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where safety, security, and reliability are critical. AdaCore’s flagship product is the GNAT Pro development environment, which comes with expert on-line support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has an extensive worldwide customer base; see http://www.adacore.com/home/company/customers/ for further information.

Ada and GNAT Pro continue to see growing usage in high-integrity and safety-certified applications, including commercial aircraft avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, railroad systems, and medical devices, and in security-sensitive domains such as financial services.