NEW YORK, NY, and PARIS [Jan. 24, 2006]--ARA member AdaCore, an international developer of Ada tools and compilers, has introduced a new version of its GNAT Programming Studio (GPS), a sophisticated software development environment for the Ada programming language.

Incorporating a significant number of new features, the new GPS version includes improved usability and more powerful source navigation, according to the company's press release. It is available on the latest 64 bit GNU/Linux-based platforms, including those from SGI, HP and Intel.

The company concentrated on a more user-friendly location view, enhanced tool tips, code completion, and new project-editing capabilities. Human interface improvements include better layout of graphical information, as well as the ability to export using the Scalable Vector Graphics format.

GPS offers multi-language support, including Ada, C, and C++, and is available on a wide range of host environments for both native and cross-development, including UNIX, Windows and GNU/Linux. An intuitive, unified visual interface, identical across all platforms, serves as a control panel to access tools from AdaCore’s GNAT Pro Ada development environment as well as from third parties, easing both development and maintenance. As a result, GPS is particularly suited for large, complex systems requiring tool chain integration, ease of use, user customization, and code navigation/analysis.

The latest version of GPS provides many new features, including:

• New availability on IA-64 SGI Altix, IA-64 HP Linux, IA-64 HP-UX, x86-64 GNU/Linux platforms
• New cross-reference queries
• Improved plug-in capabilities and python extensions
• Refactoring (rename entity, named parameter associations)
• More efficient and user-friendly locations view
• Improved assembly view
• Persistent bookmarks
• Version Control System activities (group commit)
• Enhanced tooltips and code completion
• Improved graphs (better layout, ability to export in SVG format)
• New call graph tree
• Project Editor enhancements

GPS is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) written in Ada, based on the GtkAda toolkit. GPS’ extensive source-code navigation and analysis tools can generate a broad range of useful information, including call graphs, source dependencies, project organization, and complexity metrics. It also provides support for configuration management through an interface to third-party Version Control Systems, and supports a variety of platforms, including Alpha Tru64, Altix Linux, MIPS-IRIX, PA-RISC HP-UX, SPARC Solaris, x86 GNU/Linux, x86 Solaris, and x86 Windows. GPS is highly extensible; a simple scripting approach enables additional tool integration. It is also tailorable, allowing programmers to specialize various aspects of the program’s appearance in the editor for a user-specified look and feel.

The Ada Resource Association (http://www.adaresource.com) is an international trade group comprising the principal vendors of Ada-related technology. The ARA promotes and publicizes Ada technology usage (http://www.adaic.org), and sponsors the ongoing development and maintenance of the Ada language standard and associated infrastructure.

The ARA's current members are AdaCore, Aonix, IBM Rational, Praxis Critical Systems, and SofCheck.