AdaCore Blog

14 entries tagged with #Code generation

by Rob Tice

SPARKZumo Part 1: Ada and SPARK on Any Platform

So you want to use SPARK for your next microcontroller project? Great choice! All you need is an Ada 2012 ready compiler and the SPARK tools. But what happens when an Ada 2012 compiler isn’t available for your architecture?

#CCG    #SPARK    #Arduino    #RISC V    #embedded   

by Yannick Moy

Tokeneer Fully Verified with SPARK 2014

Tokeneer is a software for controlling physical access to a secure enclave by means of a fingerprint sensor. This software was created by Altran (Praxis at the time) in 2003 using the previous generation of SPARK language and tools, as part of a project commissioned by the NSA to investigate the rigorous development of critical software using formal methods. The project artefacts, including the source code, were released as open source in 2008. Tokeneer was widely recognized as a milestone in industrial formal verification. We recently transitioned this software to SPARK 2014, and it allowed us to go beyond what was possible with the previous SPARK technology. We have also shown how security vulnerabilities introduced in the code can be detected by formal verification.

#SPARK    #Formal Methods   

by Fabien Chouteau, Arnaud Charlet, Yannick Moy

SPARK Tetris on the Arduboy

One of us got hooked on the promise of a credit-card-size programmable pocket game under the name of Arduboy and participated in its kickstarter in 2015. The kickstarter was successful (but late) and delivered  the expected working board in mid 2016. Of course, the idea from the start was to program it in Ada , but this is an 8-bits AVR microcontroller (the ATmega32u4 by Atmel) not supported anymore by GNAT Pro. One solution would have been to rebuild our own GNAT compiler for 8-bit AVR from the GNAT FSF repository and use the AVR-Ada project. Another solution, which we explore in this blog post, is to use the SPARK-to-C compiler that we developed at AdaCore to turn our Ada code into C and then use the Arduino toolchain to compile for the Arduboy board.

by Quentin Ochem

Unity & Ada

Using Ada technologies to develop video games doesn’t sound like an an obvious choice - although it seems like there could be an argument to be made. The reverse, however, opens some more straightforward perspectives.

#GitHub    #Ada    #GNAT    

by Yannick Moy

Research Corner - SPARK 2014 vs Frama-C vs Why3

Ready for a bloody comparison between technologies underlying the tools for SPARK 2014 vs Frama-C vs Why3? Nothing like that in that article we wrote with developers of the Why3 and Frama-C toolsets. In fact, it's a bloody good comparison really, that emphasizes the differences and benefits in each technology.

#Formal Verification    #SPARK   

by Yannick Moy

Research Corner - Proving Security of Binary Programs with SPARK

Researchers from Dependable Computing and Zephyr Software LLC have presented at the latest NASA Formal Methods conference last week their work on proving security of binary programs. In this work, they use SPARK as intermediate language and GNATprove as proof tool, which is an atypical and interesting use of the SPARK technology.

#Formal Verification    #SPARK    #Security   

by Pierre-Marie de Rodat

C library bindings: GCC plugins to the rescue

I recently started working on an Ada binding for the excellent libuv C library. This library provides a convenient API to perform asynchronous I/O under an event loop, which is a popular way to develop server stacks. A central part of this API is its enumeration type for error codes: most functions use it. Hence, one of the first things I had to do was to bind the enumeration type for error codes. Believe it or not: this is harder than it first seems!

#Code generation    #Ada   

by Yannick Moy

Did SPARK 2014 Rethink Formal Methods?

David Parnas is a well-known researcher in formal methods, who famously contributed to the analysis of the shut-down software for the Darlington nuclear power plant and designed the specification method known as Parnas tables and the development method called Software Cost Reduction. In 2010, the magazine CACM asked him to identify what was preventing more widespread adoption of formal methods in industry, and in this article on Really Rethinking Formal Methods he listed 17 areas that needed rethinking. The same year, we started a project to recreate SPARK with new ideas and new technology, which lead to SPARK 2014 as it is today. Parnas's article influenced some critical design decisions. Six years later, it's interesting to see how the choices we made in SPARK 2014 address (or not) Parnas's concerns.

#Formal Verification    #SPARK   

by Yannick Moy

GNATprove Tips and Tricks: User Profiles

One of the most difficult tasks when using proof techniques is to interact with provers, in particular to progressively increase proof power until everything that should be proved is proved. Until the last release, increasing the proof power meant operating on three separate switches. There is now a simpler solution based on a new switch --level, together with a simpler proof panel in GPS for new users.

#Formal Verification    #SPARK   

by AdaCore Admin

AdaCore Tech Days 2015

#AdaCoreTechDay    #GNAT Pro    #CodePeer    #SPARK Pro    #SPARK    #QGen   

by Raphaël Amiard

Make with Ada : From bits to music

I started out as an electronic musician, so one of my original motivations when I learnt programming was so that I could eventually *program* the sounds I wanted rather than just use already existing software to do it.

#Makers    #Ada    #Embedded Development   

by AdaCore Admin

Project P Open Workshop

Project-P Open Workshop

#QGen    #ProjectP    #Workshop    #---    #Code generation   

by Yannick Moy

GNATprove Tips and Tricks: Minimizing Rework

As automatic proof is time consuming, it is important that rework following a change in source code is minimized. GNATprove uses a combination of techniques to ensure that, both for a single user, and when working in a team.

#Formal Verification    #SPARK   

by Olivier Ramonat

AdaCore Releases GNAT Pro 7.3, QGen 1.0 and GNATdashboard 1.0

February saw the annual customer release of a number of important products. This is no mean task when you consider the fact that GNAT Pro is available on over 50 platforms and supports over 150 runtime profiles (ranging from Full Ada Support to the very restricted Zero Footprint Profile suitable for safety-critical development). All in all, from the branching of the preview version to the customer release it takes us nearly 4 months to package everything up! Quality is assured through the internally developed AdaCore Factory.

#GNAT Pro    #SPARK Pro    #GPS    #GNATbench    #GNATdashboard    #Ada    #AdaCore Factory    #CodePeer    #QGen