Ada Compiler Generates C Source

Nov. 17, 2018

AdaCore’s latest GNAT Pro Ada compiler can generate C source code, delivering portability to most platforms with a C compiler.

William G. Wong

With AdaCore’s latest GNAT Pro Ada compiler, it’s now possible to generate C source code using its Common Code Generator (CCG). This is designed to provide portability to the vast majority of platforms that have a C compiler. It was originally done to support the popular 8-bit Microchip AVR that AdaCore doesn’t support with its native code support targeting platforms, such as the 32- and 64-bit x86, ARM, RISC-V, and Power architectures.

Using CCG is just a matter of a command-line option (see codelist below). It handles a subset of Ada, but this still includes features like fixed-point support and the minimal standard library. Features not supported are ones that would be hard to implement or those not supported by C compilers like overflow checks. This is one reason to use support for SPARK, a provable subset of Ada. CCG works with SPARK applications.

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Compiling Ada/SPARK code into C like this is as easy as a command-line switch.

The ability to insert assembly code inline is also missing. However, it’s possible to edit generated C code to do this since the C compiler supports such a feature.

The Ada.Real_Time runtime package is supported if rts_monotonic_clock and rts_delay_until procedures are provided. The online documentation covers the details of everything that is and isn’t supported.

Support for 8-bit platforms is just one reason to use CCG. It can handle other platforms that don’t support Ada and SPARK compilers.

If you want a quick way to learn basic Ada and SPARK programming, then check out AdaCore’s online training tools. You can edit source code online and have it compiled and executed.

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About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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