Resources for Ada

FTP Warning: Some items listed here are accessed through FTP.
Happy conforming to standards.

Standards

Note: Our Bindings section has bindings to some of the standards listed here.

Ada 95 Reference Manual

The revised Ada standard, ISO/IEC/ANSI 8652:1995, was officially approved in February 1995. There are several electronic formats of the new reference manual (RM95): our unique online hypertext version, as well as ASCII text and Postscript. Paper copies can be ordered.

Ada 95 Rationale

The Ada 95 Rationale describes the overall scope and objectives of the Ada 95 standard, and gives an overview of its main technical features. There are also several electronic formats of the new rationale, including an online hypertext version. To obtain a paper copy, follow the same channels as for ordering paper copies of the RM. Read part I before you attempt to read the Ada 95 Reference Manual; then parts II and III should be read in conjunction with the Reference Manual. For more details on the roots of Ada (including Steelman), see the historical section of the Ada Home.

POSIX/Ada 1003.5 package specifications

The IEEE approved IEEE Standard 1003.5-1992 in June 1992. This is the Ada Binding to the facilities defined in ISO 9945-1:1989/IEEE 1003.1-1990, the POSIX System Services.

Current IEEE policy prohibits electronic distribution of IEEE standards. IEEE standards are sold, for real money, which is used to pay IEEE employees (editors, technical support personnel) who make such standards possible. When the IEEE figures out how to get money from some other source, electronic versions will probably be available. However, The POSIX P1003.5 committee has been able to work out an arrangement with the IEEE to make the POSIX/Ada package specifications available for electronic distribution.

POSIX/Ada 1003.5b draft 2.4, March 1994 (previously 1003.20)

This is the proposed Ada binding to the P1003.4 and draft P1003.4a POSIX Realtime Extensions (compressed Postscript file, 500KB).

The latest draft--POSIX.5b/Draft4, i.e. the proposed standard Ada binding for the POSIX Realtime Extension and Threads Extension--is currently in IEEE ballot and has been submitted to ISO/JTC1 SC22 for review and comment.

See the bindings section for an implementation.

ASIS: the Ada Semantic Interface Specification

The Ada Semantic Interface Specification is a layered vendor-independent open architecture. ASIS queries and services provide a consistent interface to information within the Ada Program Library created at compile time. Clients of ASIS are shielded and free from the implementation details of each Ada compiler vendor's proprietary library and intermediate representation. ASIS is intended to become a secondary standard, after adaptation to Ada 95.

Ada Numerics secondary ISO standard

The ACM SIGAda Numerics Working Group and Ada-Europe Numerics Working Group have made sample implementations of the Ada Numerics secondary ISO standard. These implementations are pretty portable.

The generic elementary mathematical functions cover three families of functions: exponential, trigonometric, and hyperbolic. Complex types and functions are also available.

Annex H Rapporteur Group (HRG)

The ISO Ada group (WG9) has set up the Annex H Rapporteur Group (HRG), under the chairmanship of Brian Wichmann, at the National Physical Laboratory (UK).

The purpose of the HRG is to determine how to reduce the verification and validation costs of systems written in Ada.

Ada/Motif Binding (IEEE P1295.1)

The IEEE Computer Society Portable Applications Standards Committee (PASC) (the same folks who brought you the P1003.5 POSIX/Ada binding) has authorized the formation of a group to standardize an Ada binding to Motif (IEEE Standard P1295.1, Modular Toolkit Environment, to be specific). This group will be assigned to PASC Working Group P1003.5, the POSIX Ada Bindings group. Depending on the state of the work, standardization should take 2 to 4 years.

For a copy of the current draft of IEEE Std 1295, contact the IEEE at (800) 678-IEEE, and ask for Order Number DS03277. (The cost is $61 + shipping for an IEEE member, and somewhat more for non-members.) For technical information, contact David Emery (emery@grebyn.com) at (617) 271-2815.

MIL-STD-2167A (large)

This is the DoD standard which establishes uniform requirements for software development, thus providing--together with other DoD standards--a basis for US Government insight into the quality of a software contractor's efforts. It does not specify any particular development method.

This file was hand-built from a hardcopy. It is not fully complete yet. For example, it currently lacks the figures and the DIDs. There may be other omissions, typos or errors. (HTML document by Mark Atwood)

SAMeDL, Ada-SQL Binding

SAMeDL is SQL Ada Module Description Language, an Ada-SQL Binding Language currently undergoing ISO standardization (it holds Draft International Standard status right now). It was developed with input from both the Ada and SQL communities, government, and industry. SAMeDL provides a flexible and portable way to interface Ada applications with SQL. SAMeDL integrates Ada and SQL in a unique way, supporting features such as user-defined types, robust error handling, safe null-value handling, and record-oriented i/o. SAMeDL is growing in popularity because it offers support for Ada features that are not supported in other SQL bindings.

SAMeDL was developed by the SQL Ada Module Extensions Design Committee, led by Dr. Marc Graham of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. SAMeDL is currently undergoing International Standards Organization (ISO) standardization. Because SAMeDL is defined in terms of existing industry standards, it promotes functional compliance with the entry-level Ada SQL module language interface defined in SQL2: ISO/IEC 9075:1992, Database Language SQL; and the Ada standard, ISO 8652:1987.

See the bindings section for implementations.

PCTE, a Portable Common Tool Environment

PCTE is a platform for software engineering environments, tools, and applications. It is a European standard, with language bindings for Ada (ECMA-162) and C.

Finally, ASSET, one of many government-sponsored software repositories, exports a catalog of its collection of assets in the domain of Ada Standards and Bindings.

Copyright © 1994-1997 by KSCE. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of KSCE is strictly prohibited. Ada Home and Home of the Brave Ada Programmers are trademarks of KSCE. For comments, additions, corrections, gripes, kudos, etc. please send email or use the Ada Home feedback page. Page last modified: 1997-02-05