22 entries tagged with #typing
by Roderick Chapman
SPARKNaCl with GNAT and SPARK Community 2021: Port, Proof and Performance
This post continues our adventures with SPARKNaCl - our verified SPARK version of the TweetNaCl cryptographic library. This time, we'll be looking at yet more performance improvement via proof-driven "operator narrowing", porting the library to GNAT Community 2021, and the effect that has on proof and performance of the code.by Arnaud Charlet
Going beyond Ada 2022
As we've seen previously in Ada 2022 support in GNAT, the support for Ada 2022 is now mostly there for everyone to take advantage of. We're now crossing fingers for this new revision to be officially stamped by ISO in 2022.
by Paul Butcher
Finding Vulnerabilities using Advanced Fuzz testing and AFLplusplus v3.0
Some of you may recall an AdaCore blog post written in 2017 by Thales engineer Lionel Matias titled "Leveraging Ada Run-Time Checks with Fuzz Testing in AFL". This insightful post took us on a journey of discovery as Lionel demonstrated how Ada programs, compiled using GNAT Pro and an adapted assembler pass can be subjected to advanced fuzz testing. In order to achieve this Lionel demonstrated how instrumentation of the generated assembly code around jump and label instructions, could be subjected to grey-box (path aware) fuzz testing (using the original AFL v2.52b as the fuzz engine). Lionel explained how applying the comprehensive spectrum of Ada runtime checks, in conjunction with Ada's strong typing and contract based programming, enhanced the capabilities of fuzz testing beyond the abilities of other languages. Ada's advanced runtime checking, for exceptions like overflows, and the scrutiny of Ada's design by contract assertions allow corner case bugs to be found whilst also utilising fuzz testing to verify functional correctness.
by Arnaud Charlet
Ada 202x support in GNAT
News from the Ada front The next revision of the Ada standard is now almost ready, so it's time for a status update on where GNAT and AdaCore stand on this front!
by Emma Adby

Make with Ada 2020: The SmartBase - IoT Adjustable Bed
John Singleton's The SmartBase makes your existing adjustable bed safer and easier to use by adding voice control and safe (and fun!) LED underbed lighting! Additionally, this project won first place prize in the 2019/20 Make with Ada competition.by Ghjuvan Lacambre

Time travel debugging in GNAT Studio with GDB and RR
Learn how to use GDB and RR's advanced time traveling features in GNAT Studio.by Michael Frank
Learning SPARK via Conway's Game of Life
How I learned to write SPARK-provable code using Conway's Game Of Lifeby Isabelle Vialard
Secure Use of Cryptographic Libraries: SPARK Binding for Libsodium
The challenge faced by cryptography APIs is to make building functional and secure programs easy for the user. In this blog post I will present you how I created a SPARK binding for Libsodium, using strong typing and preconditions/postconditions to enforce a safe and functional use of basic cryptographic primitives.by Yannick Moy , Raphaël Amiard , Tucker Taft
RFCs for Ada and SPARK evolution now on GitHub
Interested in participating in the evolution of the Ada or SPARK languages? We have something for you.by Yannick Moy , Nicolas Setton , Ben Brosgol
A Readable Introduction to Both MISRA C and SPARK Ada
MISRA C is the most widely known coding standard restricting the use of the C programming language for critical software. For good reasons. For one, its focus is entirely on avoiding error-prone programming features of the C programming language rather than on enforcing a particular programming style. In addition, a large majority of rules it defines are checkable automatically (116 rules out of the total 159 guidelines), and many tools are available to enforce those. As a coding standard, MISRA C even goes out of its way to define a consistent sub-language of C, with its own typing rules (called the "essential type model" in MISRA C) to make up for the lack of strong typing in C.
by Emma Adby , Fabien Chouteau

GNAT Community 2018 is here!
Calling all members of the Ada and SPARK community, we are pleased to announce that GNAT Community 2018 is here! adacore.com/download
by Felix Krause
The Road to a Thick OpenGL Binding for Ada: Part 2
This blog post is part two of a tutorial based on the OpenGLAda project and will cover implementation details such as a type system for interfacing with C, error handling, memory management, and loading functions.by Yannick Moy , Martin Becker , Emanuel Regnath
Physical Units Pass the Generic Test
The support for physical units in programming languages is a long-standing issue, which very few languages have even attempted to solve. This issue has been mostly solved for Ada in 2012 by our colleagues Ed Schonberg and Vincent Pucci who introduced special aspects for specifying physical dimensions on types. This dimension system did not attempt to deal with generics though. As was noted by others, handling generics in a dimensional analysis that is, like in GNAT, a compile-time analysis with no impact on the executable size or running time, is the source of the problem of dimension handling. Together with our partners from Technical Universitat München, we have finally solved this remaining difficulty.by Jonas Attertun

Make with Ada 2017: Brushless DC Motor Controller
This project involves the design of a software platform that provides a good basis when developing motor controllers for brushless DC motors (BLDC/PMSM). It consist of a basic but clean and readable implementation of a sensored field oriented control algorithm. Included is a logging feature that will simplify development and allows users to visualize what is happening. The project shows that Ada successfully can be used for a bare-metal project that requires fast execution.by Yannick Moy
Research Corner - FLOSS Glider Software in SPARK
Two years ago, we redeveloped the code of a small quadcopter called Crazyflie in SPARK, as a proof-of-concept to show it was possible to prove absence of run-time errors (no buffer overflows, not division by zero, etc.) on such code. The researchers Martin Becker and Emanuel Regnath have raised the bar by developing the code for the autopilot of a small glider in SPARK in three months only. Their paper and slides are available, and they have released their code as FLOSS for others to use/modify/enhance!by Emmanuel Briot

Bookmarks in the GNAT Programming Studio (GPS)
As we improve existing views in GPS, we discover new ways to use them. This post shows some of the improvements done recently in the Bookmarks view, and how you can now use it as a TODO list.by Emmanuel Briot
Traits-Based Containers
This post describes the design of a new containers library. It highlights some of the limitations of the standard Ada containers, and proposes a new approach using generic packages as formal parameters to make these new containers highly configurable at compile time.by Martyn Pike
The latest Mixed Programming with Ada lectures at the AdaCore University
I recently joined AdaCore as a Technical Account Manager with an initial focus on the UK and Scandinavian regions, but for the last 12 months I've been busy working on the AdaCore University. The most recent addition to which is a course on Mixed Language Programming with Ada, and it includes lectures on the integration of Ada with C, C++ and Java. The course covers some advanced topics like mixed language object orientation, techniques for using Ada strong typing to combat known issue with C pointers and the pitfalls that are encountered when mixing native Ada code with Java at runtime. This course clearly demonstrates that Ada has strong support for integration with C, C++ and Java and it proves there are no technical barriers to its adoption in modern mixed language software systems.
by Johannes Kanig
SPARK 15: Errors, Warnings and Checks
The messages issued by the SPARK toolset will change a bit in the next version of both SPARK Pro and SPARK GPL. This post explains the change and the motivation behind it.by Yannick Moy
