AdaCore Releases GNAT Pro 7.0

Open-source research projects combine model-based integration and qualified code generation for safety-critical systems

NEW YORK, PARIS and NUREMBERG, Germany, February 28, 2012 – Embedded World Conference - AdaCore today announced the availability of GNAT Pro 7.0, a major new version of the company’s flagship development environment product. This latest annual release completely implements the upcoming Ada 2012 language revision, offers a range of improvements (many based on user suggestions), supports several new platforms, includes an important new testing tool (GNATtest), and enhances several existing tools. As with all AdaCore products, GNAT Pro is Freely-Licensed Open Source Software (FLOSS).

”It is interesting to compare this latest GNAT Pro release to the first ones, 15 years ago,” commented Cyrille Comar, Managing Director of AdaCore (EU). “It used to consist of a bare Ada 95 compiler for a few native platforms. Now we offer a modern, comprehensive development environment and toolset dedicated to the sound software engineering of long-lived, highly-reliable systems, including those with strong safety requirements.”

“Although our main priority is always to maintain the highest level of support for our existing customers, we are still able to sustain a rapid pace of improvements and developments,” said Robert Dewar, President and CEO of AdaCore (US). “Every major release of GNAT Pro contains substantial advances, and this release is certainly no exception. It contains many important improvements, featuring in particular a comprehensive implementation of the new Ada 2012 language standard, which is itself an exciting step forward.”

The Ada programming language is reaching the final stages of a major revision, and the new standard, known as Ada 2012, will then be sent to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for ratification. The new features establish the Ada programming language as the benchmark for developers requiring the highest levels of reliability, safety, and security. The most important enhancements relate to the concept of contract-based programming. The introduction of more powerful assertion mechanisms in the language, such as pre- and post-conditions for subprograms, global assertions, and type invariants, encourage programmers to better specify the meaning of their code, and allow run-time verification to guarantee that their intent is, in fact, obeyed. These features will also be useful for static analysis tools. Learn more about Ada 2012

The new GNAT Pro 7.0 includes the following enhancements:

Compiler

  • Complete Ada 2012 support
  • New controlled type implementation (better memory usage)
  • New warnings and improved error messages
  • Optimizations for array processing and composite return values

Tools

  • Complete Ada 2012 support
  • Many new options and pretty-printing improvements in gnatpp
  • New coupling metrics in gnatmetric

New Components
GNATtest (Automatic Test Framework), to create and maintain a complete unit testing infrastructure for complex projects. Based on AUnit, GNATtest embodies a simple idea: each visible subprogram should have at least one corresponding unit test.

A webinar presenting the new GNATtest tool will take place on March 20th: http://www.adacore.com/home/products/gnatpro/webinars/

About GNAT Pro
The GNAT Pro development environment, available on more platforms than any other Ada toolset, is a full-featured, multi-language development environment complete with libraries, bindings and a range of supplementary tools. It provides a natural solution for organizations that need to create reliable, efficient, and maintainable code. GNAT Pro implements all three versions of the Ada language standard – Ada 83, Ada 95, and Ada 2005 – and the latest version of GNAT Pro implements all new features in Ada 2012. GNAT Pro is based on the widely used GCC technology and is backed by rapid and expert support service.

Pricing and Availability
GNAT Pro 7.0 is available immediately on most supported platforms. Please contact AdaCore (info@adacore.com) for further details on pricing and supported configurations.

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, a state-of-the-art programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where safety, security, and reliability are critical. AdaCore's flagship product is the GNAT Pro development environment, which comes with expert on-line support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has an extensive world-wide customer base; see http://www.adacore.com/home/company/customers/ for further information.

Ada and GNAT Pro continue to see a growing usage in high-integrity and safety-certified applications, including commercial aircraft avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, railroad systems, and medical devices, and in security-sensitive domains such as financial services.

AdaCore has North American headquarters in New York and European headquarters in Paris. www.adacore.com

Press Contacts

press@adacore.com
http://twitter.com/AdaCoreCompany

Jessie Glockner
Rainier Communications (for AdaCore)
Tel: 508-475-0025 x140
adacore@rainierco.com
http://twitter.com/JessieGlockner