Ada Resource Association

Language revision adds contract-based programming, multicore support, and other advanced features

GENEVA, Switzerland, December 18, 2012 – The Ada Resource Association (ARA) and Ada-Europe today announced the approval and publication of the latest version of the Ada programming language by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The language revision, known as Ada 2012, was under the auspices of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG9 and was conducted by the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG) subunit of WG9, with sponsorship in part from the ARA and Ada-Europe. The formal approval of the standard was issued on November 20 by ISO/IEC JTC 1, and the standard was published on December 15.

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A new GNAT Pro feature allows Ada developers to portably and reliably define data layout in an endianness-independent fashion. This capability makes it possible to port and reuse existing code bases on a different hardware platform, without having to manually implement the error-prone, byte-swapping logic that would otherwise be needed.

Rockwell Collins has successfully used AdaCore’s Code Traceability Analysis for DO-178B in the certification of the Integrated Display System (IDS) for a large, next-generation, commercial aircraft. The Traceability Analysis package is part of the evidence needed to satisfy the DO-178B objectives for structural code coverage at Level A, the highest (most stringent) level for avionics software safety.