A Translator-Interpreter

Ada/Ed is a translator/interpreter (for Unix and DOS-386 machines) for Ada 83 developed at New York University (NYU) as part of project in language definition and software prototyping. It is intended as a teaching tool and does not have the capacity, performance, or robustness of commercial Ada compilers.

As a translator-interpreter, Ada/Ed does not implement most representation clauses and, therefore, does not support systems programming close to the machine level. It will not produce a stand- alone executable version; rather, Ada/Ed is needed in order to run programs.

Ada/Ed is not currently a validated Ada system. It was last validated under Version 1.7 of the Ada Compiler Validation Capability (ACVC) test suite, but fails just over 100 tests in the current ACVC test suite for Ada 83 compilers, Version 1.11. Users can expect to find small discrepancies between Ada/Ed and currently validated compilers. Despite these limitations, Ada/Ed is of much use to the students, educators, users, and implementors in the Ada community.

Using Ada/Ed

The Ada/Ed system includes the following commands:

adacomp [-abgsv] [-m main_unit] [-n] [-l library] file

adabind	[-m main_unit] [-l library] 

adaexec [-h heap] [-m bound_main_unit] [-p pstack] [-s tstack]

        [-r nb_stmts] [-t [acerst]] [-l library] 

adalib  [-l library] 

adacomp compiles an Ada program by invoking in succession the two compilation phases: parsing and semantic analysis (the front-end) and code generation. The file argument refers to the source file; if no extension is given for it, the extension ADA is assumed. The file argument may contain drive and directory specifications. The output of the compiler is an instruction stream for an abstract Ada machine, which is then interpreted. adabind binds a given library with the specified main unit to form an executable program. adaexec invokes the Ada machine interpreter for the bound program given in the specified library. adalib displays the contents of the specified library. For more information on using Ada/Ed, access the README file from the distribution of Ada/Ed version 1.11.2-PC, an interpreter for 386/486 machines running MS-DOS/PC-DOS.

Obtaining Ada/Ed

The Ada/Ed system (release 1.11.0a, Copyright 1986-1992 New York University) can be found on NYU's Computer Science Internet host (IP address: 128.122.140.24) and retrieved via ftp: ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/adaed Ada/Ed is freely available and may be redistributed and modified under the terms of Version 2 (or any later version) of the GNU General Purpose License as published by the Free Software Foundation. The software is distributed absolutely without any warranty, not even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. For more information, refer to the full text of the GNU General Purpose License; copies may be requested from:

Free Software Foundation
59 Temple Place - Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Phone: +1-617-542-5942
Fax: +1-617-542-2652
Email: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu

User Registration and Software Maintenance

All users of Ada/Ed are urged to register themselves by contacting:

NYUAda Project
New York University
251 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10012
E-mail:adaed@cs.nyu.edu

Registration will allow the developers to notify users of updates and new releases of the system. Those that modify or adapt the system are also encouraged to let the NYUAda project know what creative uses they have found for the system.

The NYUAda project does not have the resources to promise regular new maintenance releases of the software, but will do its best to keep track of reported errors, work-arounds, and fixes. They will also produce at irregular intervals design notes and additional documentation on the front-end of the system. Users are urged to e-mail comments, corrections, and bug reports (reduced to their simplest form!) to: adaed@cs.nyu.edu.