11.11 Naming Schemes

Sometimes an Ada software system is ported from a foreign compilation environment to GNAT, and the file names do not use the default GNAT conventions. Instead of changing all the file names (which for a variety of reasons might not be possible), you can define the relevant file naming scheme in the Naming package in your project file.

Note that the use of pragmas described in Alternative File Naming Schemes by mean of a configuration pragmas file is not supported when using project files. You must use the features described in this paragraph. You can however use specify other configuration pragmas (see Specifying Configuration Pragmas).

For example, the following package models the Apex file naming rules:

       package Naming is
         for Casing               use "lowercase";
         for Dot_Replacement      use ".";
         for Spec_Suffix ("Ada")  use ".1.ada";
         for Body_Suffix ("Ada")  use ".2.ada";
       end Naming;

You can define the following attributes in package Naming:

Casing

This must be a string with one of the three values "lowercase", "uppercase" or "mixedcase"; these strings are case insensitive.

If Casing is not specified, then the default is "lowercase".

Dot_Replacement

This must be a string whose value satisfies the following conditions:

• It must not be empty
• It cannot start or end with an alphanumeric character
• It cannot be a single underscore
• It cannot start with an underscore followed by an alphanumeric
• It cannot contain a dot '.' except if the entire string is "."

If Dot_Replacement is not specified, then the default is "-".

Spec_Suffix

This is an associative array (indexed by the programming language name, case insensitive) whose value is a string that must satisfy the following conditions:

• It must not be empty
• It must include at least one dot

If Spec_Suffix ("Ada") is not specified, then the default is ".ads".

Body_Suffix

This is an associative array (indexed by the programming language name, case insensitive) whose value is a string that must satisfy the following conditions:

• It must not be empty
• It must include at least one dot
• It cannot be the same as Spec_Suffix ("Ada")

If Body_Suffix ("Ada") and Spec_Suffix ("Ada") end with the same string, then a file name that ends with the longest of these two suffixes will be a body if the longest suffix is Body_Suffix ("Ada") or a spec if the longest suffix is Spec_Suffix ("Ada").

If the suffix does not start with a '.', a file with a name exactly equal to the suffix will also be part of the project (for instance if you define the suffix as Makefile, a file called Makefile will be part of the project. This is not interesting in general when using projects to compile. However, it might become useful when a project is also used to find the list of source files in an editor, like the GNAT Programming System (GPS).

If Body_Suffix ("Ada") is not specified, then the default is ".adb".

Separate_Suffix

This must be a string whose value satisfies the same conditions as Body_Suffix. The same "longest suffix" rules apply.

If Separate_Suffix ("Ada") is not specified, then it defaults to same value as Body_Suffix ("Ada").

Spec

You can use the associative array attribute Spec to define the source file name for an individual Ada compilation unit's spec. The array index must be a string literal that identifies the Ada unit (case insensitive). The value of this attribute must be a string that identifies the file that contains this unit's spec (case sensitive or insensitive depending on the operating system).

             for Spec ("MyPack.MyChild") use "mypack.mychild.spec";
     

When the source file contains several units, you can indicate at what position the unit occurs in the file, with the following. The first unit in the file has index 1

            for Body ("top") use "foo.a" at 1;
            for Body ("foo") use "foo.a" at 2;
     

Body

You can use the associative array attribute Body to define the source file name for an individual Ada compilation unit's body (possibly a subunit). The array index must be a string literal that identifies the Ada unit (case insensitive). The value of this attribute must be a string that identifies the file that contains this unit's body or subunit (case sensitive or insensitive depending on the operating system).

             for Body ("MyPack.MyChild") use "mypack.mychild.body";