The GNAT Project

The GNAT project has been involved in the evaluation and implementation of Ada95, and the construction of a robust open-source compiler for Ada95, based on the GCC back-end technology. The project started in 1992, when the language revision for Ada was initiated. Originally, the goal of the project was to examine the implementability of the new language features, using Ada/Ed, a prototype translator written in SETL that was the first complete validated compiler for Ada83. The project expanded into the construction of an industrial- strength compiler for the full language. The GNAT system is in wide use in academia and industry today, and the technical development and maintenance of the system has moved out of NYU, to Ada Core Technologies . The open-source nature of the GNAT system continues to make it a useful vehicle for language experimentation and compiler instrumentation. At the same time, is an important new component in the open-source software movement. The interesting compilation challenges presented by Ada have had a substantial impact on the GCC backend components, and new ports of the GNAT system to other targets continue to appear.