Question

I installed Ada and AWS on a Macbook for the first time tonight.

Everything seemed successful with the installation, but I’m getting the feeling that AWS didn’t install to the right directory.

GNAT is in /usr/local/gnat.

The AWS makefile.conf said,

AWS will be installed under $(prefix). Update this variable to point to
the install directory. By default, it is set to the current GNAT root
directory to have AWS project files automatically available.

So I didn’t change the target.

But when I try to compile hello_world from anywhere on the system except the AWS demos folder, I get this error:

~/projects/ada:gnatmake hello.adb
gcc -c hello.adb
hello.adb:1:06: file "aws.ads" not found
hello.adb:2:06: file "aws.ads" not found
hello.adb:3:06: file "aws.ads" not found
hello.adb:4:06: file "aws.ads" not found
gnatmake: "hello.adb" compilation error

How can I make sure AWS was installed properly, or move it if it wasn’t?

Answer 1

The answer (well, more of a hint to those in the know) lies in the words “to have AWS project files automatically available”.

In the GNAT context, “project file” means a file of type .gpr which tells the builder (gnatmake or gprbuild) where to find the source files, how to compile them, and where to find any libraries that “this” project depends on.

Create hello.gpr:

with "aws";
project Hello is
   for Main use ("hello.adb");
end Hello;

(which is very minimal) then

with AWS;
with Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Hello is
begin
   Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("AWS version is " & AWS.Version);
end Hello;

compiled with

gprbuild -P hello.gpr

outputs

AWS version is 2.10.0w

There is on-line information on gprbuild and gnatmake (gnatmake has been superseded by gprbuild); there is probably information in your installed GNAT at (subdirectories of) ${prefix}/share/doc.