Modular programming¶

So far, our examples have been simple standalone procedures. Ada is helpful in that regard, since it allows arbitrary declarations in a declarative part. We were thus able to declare our types and variables in the bodies of main procedures.

However, it is easy to see that this is not going to scale up for real-world applications. We need a better way to structure our programs into modular and distinct units.

Ada encourages the separation of programs into multiple packages and sub-packages, providing many tools to a programmer on a quest for a perfectly organized code-base.

Packages¶

Here is an example of a package declaration in Ada:

package Week is -- This is a declarative part. You can put only -- declarations here, no statements type Days is (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday); type Workload_Type is array (Days range <>) of Natural; Workload : constant Workload_Type := (Monday .. Thursday => 8, Friday => 7, Saturday | Sunday => 0); end Week;

And here is how you use it:

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO; with Week; -- References the Week package, and adds a dependency from Main -- to Week procedure Main is begin for D in Week.Days loop -- ^ Reference to Week.Days enumeration type Put_Line ("Workload for day " & Week.Days'Image (D) & " is " & Natural'Image (Week.Workload (D))); end loop; end Main;

Packages let you make your code modular, separating your programs into semantically significant units. Additionally the separation of a package's specification from its body (which we will see below) can reduce compilation time.

While the with clause indicates a dependency, you can see in the example above that you still need to prefix the referencing of entities from the Week package by the name of the package. (If we had included a "use Week" clause, then such a prefix would not have been necessary.)

Accessing entities from a package uses the dot notation, A.B, which is the same notation as the one used to access record fields.

A with clause can only appear in the prelude of a compilation unit (i.e., before the reserved word, such as procedure, that marks the beginning of the unit). It is not allowed anywhere else. This rule is only needed for methodological reasons: the person reading your code should be able to see immediately which units the code depends on.

In other languages

Packages look similar to, but are semantically very different from, header files in C/C++.

The first and most important distinction is that packages are a language-level mechanism. This is in contrast to a #include'd header file, which is a functionality of the C preprocessor.
An immediate consequence is that the "with" construct is a semantic inclusion mechanism, not a text inclusion mechanism. Hence, when you "with" a package, you are saying to the compiler "I'm depending on this semantic unit", and not "include this bunch of text in place here".
The effect of a package thus does not vary depending on where it has been "with"ed from. Contrast this with C/C++, where the meaning of the included text depends on the context in which the #include appears.

This allows compilation/recompilation to be more efficient. It also allows tools like IDEs to have correct information about the semantics of a program. In turn, this allows better tooling in general, and code that is more analyzable, even by humans.

An important benefit of Ada "with" clauses when compared to #include is that it is stateless. The order of "with" and "use" clauses does not matter, and can be changed without side effects.

In the GNAT toolchain

The Ada language standard does not mandate any particular relationship between source files and packages; for example, in theory you can put all your code in one file, or use your own file naming conventions. In practice, however, an implementation will have specific rules. With GNAT, each top-level compilation unit needs to go into a separate file. In the example above, the Week package will be in an .ads file (for Ada specification), and the Main procedure will be in an .adb file (for Ada body).

Using a package¶

As we have seen above, the with clause indicates a dependency on another package. However, every reference to an entity coming from the Week package had to be prefixed by the full name of the package. It is possible to make every entity of a package visible directly in the current scope, using the use clause.

In fact, we have been using the use clause since almost the beginning of this tutorial.

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO; -- ^ Make every entity of the Ada.Text_IO package -- directly visible. with Week; procedure Main is use Week; -- Make every entity of the Week package directly visible. begin for D in Days loop -- ^ Reference to Week.Days enum type Put_Line -- Put_Line comes from Ada.Text_IO. ("Workload for day " & Days'Image (D) & " is " & Natural'Image (Workload (D))); end loop; end Main;

As you can see in the example above:

Put_Line is a subprogram that comes from the Ada.Text_IO package. We can reference it directly because we have "use"d the package at the top of the Main unit.
Unlike with clauses, a use clause can be placed either in the prelude, or in any declarative region. In the latter case the use clause will have an effect in its containing lexical scope.

Package body¶

In the somewhat artificial example above, the Week package only has declarations and no body. That's not a mistake: in a package specification, which is what is illustrated above, you cannot declare bodies. Those have to be in the package body.

package Week_2 is type Days is (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday); function Get_Workload (Day : Days) return Natural; end Week_2;

package body Week_2 is -- The body contains additional declarations, not visible from the -- spec, or anywhere outside of the body type WorkLoad_Type is array (Days range <>) of Natural; Workload : constant Workload_Type := (Monday .. Thursday => 8, Friday => 7, Saturday | Sunday => 0); function Get_Workload (Day : Days) return Natural is begin return Workload (Day); end Get_Workload; end Week_2;

Here we can see that the body of the Get_Workload function has to be declared in the body. Coincidentally, introducing a body allows us to put the Workload_Type array type and the constant Workload in the body, and make them inaccessible to the user of the Week_2 package, providing a first form of encapsulation.

This works because entities declared in the body are only visible in the body.