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3.2.5 Style Checking

The -gnatyx switch causes the compiler to enforce specified style rules. A limited set of style rules has been used in writing the GNAT sources themselves. This switch allows user programs to activate all or some of these checks. If the source program fails a specified style check, an appropriate warning message is given, preceded by the character sequence “(style)”. The string x is a sequence of letters or digits indicating the particular style checks to be performed. The following checks are defined:

1-9
Specify indentation level. If a digit from 1-9 appears in the string after -gnaty then proper indentation is checked, with the digit indicating the indentation level required. The general style of required indentation is as specified by the examples in the Ada Reference Manual. Full line comments must be aligned with the -- starting on a column that is a multiple of the alignment level.
a
Check attribute casing. If the letter a appears in the string after -gnaty then attribute names, including the case of keywords such as digits used as attributes names, must be written in mixed case, that is, the initial letter and any letter following an underscore must be uppercase. All other letters must be lowercase.
b
Blanks not allowed at statement end. If the letter b appears in the string after -gnaty then trailing blanks are not allowed at the end of statements. The purpose of this rule, together with h (no horizontal tabs), is to enforce a canonical format for the use of blanks to separate source tokens.
c
Check comments. If the letter c appears in the string after -gnaty then comments must meet the following set of rules:
d
Check no DOS line terminators present. If the letter d appears in the string after -gnaty then all lines must be terminated by a single ASCII.LF character (in particular the DOS line terminator sequence CR/LF is not allowed).
e
Check end/exit labels. If the letter e appears in the string after -gnaty then optional labels on end statements ending subprograms and on exit statements exiting named loops, are required to be present.
f
No form feeds or vertical tabs. If the letter f appears in the string after -gnaty then neither form feeds nor vertical tab characters are permitted in the source text.
h
No horizontal tabs. If the letter h appears in the string after -gnaty then horizontal tab characters are not permitted in the source text. Together with the b (no blanks at end of line) check, this enforces a canonical form for the use of blanks to separate source tokens.
i
Check if-then layout. If the letter i appears in the string after -gnaty, then the keyword then must appear either on the same line as corresponding if, or on a line on its own, lined up under the if with at least one non-blank line in between containing all or part of the condition to be tested.
k
Check keyword casing. If the letter k appears in the string after -gnaty then all keywords must be in lower case (with the exception of keywords such as digits used as attribute names to which this check does not apply).
l
Check layout. If the letter l appears in the string after -gnaty then layout of statement and declaration constructs must follow the recommendations in the Ada Reference Manual, as indicated by the form of the syntax rules. For example an else keyword must be lined up with the corresponding if keyword.

There are two respects in which the style rule enforced by this check option are more liberal than those in the Ada Reference Manual. First in the case of record declarations, it is permissible to put the record keyword on the same line as the type keyword, and then the end in end record must line up under type. For example, either of the following two layouts is acceptable:

          

type q is record a : integer; b : integer; end record; type q is record a : integer; b : integer; end record;

Second, in the case of a block statement, a permitted alternative is to put the block label on the same line as the declare or begin keyword, and then line the end keyword up under the block label. For example both the following are permitted:

          

Block : declare A : Integer := 3; begin Proc (A, A); end Block; Block : declare A : Integer := 3; begin Proc (A, A); end Block;

The same alternative format is allowed for loops. For example, both of the following are permitted:

          

Clear : while J < 10 loop A (J) := 0; end loop Clear; Clear : while J < 10 loop A (J) := 0; end loop Clear;


Lnnn
Set maximum nesting level If the sequence Lnnn, where nnn is a decimal number in the range 0-999, appears in the string after -gnaty then the maximum level of nesting of constructs (including subprograms, loops, blocks, packages, and conditionals) may not exceed the given value. A value of zero disconnects this style check.
m
Check maximum line length. If the letter m appears in the string after -gnaty then the length of source lines must not exceed 79 characters, including any trailing blanks. The value of 79 allows convenient display on an 80 character wide device or window, allowing for possible special treatment of 80 character lines. Note that this count is of characters in the source text. This means that a tab character counts as one character in this count but a wide character sequence counts as a single character (however many bytes are needed in the encoding).
Mnnn
Set maximum line length. If the sequence Mnnn, where nnn is a decimal number, appears in the string after -gnaty then the length of lines must not exceed the given value.
n
Check casing of entities in Standard. If the letter n appears in the string after -gnaty then any identifier from Standard must be cased to match the presentation in the Ada Reference Manual (for example, Integer and ASCII.NUL).
o
Check order of subprogram bodies. If the letter o appears in the string after -gnaty then all subprogram bodies in a given scope (e.g. a package body) must be in alphabetical order. The ordering rule uses normal Ada rules for comparing strings, ignoring casing of letters, except that if there is a trailing numeric suffix, then the value of this suffix is used in the ordering (e.g. Junk2 comes before Junk10).
p
Check pragma casing. If the letter p appears in the string after -gnaty then pragma names must be written in mixed case, that is, the initial letter and any letter following an underscore must be uppercase. All other letters must be lowercase.
r
Check references. If the letter r appears in the string after -gnaty then all identifier references must be cased in the same way as the corresponding declaration. No specific casing style is imposed on identifiers. The only requirement is for consistency of references with declarations.
s
Check separate specs. If the letter s appears in the string after -gnaty then separate declarations (“specs”) are required for subprograms (a body is not allowed to serve as its own declaration). The only exception is that parameterless library level procedures are not required to have a separate declaration. This exception covers the most frequent form of main program procedures.
t
Check token spacing. If the letter t appears in the string after -gnaty then the following token spacing rules are enforced:
u
Check unnecessary blank lines. Check for unnecessary blank lines. A blank line is considered unnecessary if it appears at the end of the file, or if more than one blank line occurs in sequence.
x
Check extra parentheses. Check for the use of an unnecessary extra level of parentheses (C-style) around conditions in if statements, while statements and exit statements.

In the above rules, appearing in column one is always permitted, that is, counts as meeting either a requirement for a required preceding space, or as meeting a requirement for no preceding space.

Appearing at the end of a line is also always permitted, that is, counts as meeting either a requirement for a following space, or as meeting a requirement for no following space.

If any of these style rules is violated, a message is generated giving details on the violation. The initial characters of such messages are always “(style)”. Note that these messages are treated as warning messages, so they normally do not prevent the generation of an object file. The -gnatwe switch can be used to treat warning messages, including style messages, as fatal errors.

The switch -gnaty on its own (that is not followed by any letters or digits), is equivalent to gnaty3abcefhiklmnprst, that is all checking options enabled with the exception of -gnatyo, -gnatyd, -gnatyu, and -gnatyx. an indentation level of 3 is set. This is similar to the standard checking option that is used for the GNAT sources.

The switch -gnatyN clears any previously set style checks.