4.2.2 Binder Error Message Control

The following switches provide control over the generation of error messages from the binder:

-v

Verbose mode. In the normal mode, brief error messages are generated to stderr. If this switch is present, a header is written to stdout and any error messages are directed to stdout. All that is written to stderr is a brief summary message.

-b

Generate brief error messages to stderr even if verbose mode is specified. This is relevant only when used with the -v switch.

-mn

Limits the number of error messages to n, a decimal integer in the range 1-999. The binder terminates immediately if this limit is reached.

-Mxxx

Renames the generated main program from main to xxx. This is useful in the case of some cross-building environments, where the actual main program is separate from the one generated by gnatbind.

-ws

Suppress all warning messages.

-we

Treat any warning messages as fatal errors.

-t

The binder performs a number of consistency checks including:

• Check that time stamps of a given source unit are consistent
• Check that checksums of a given source unit are consistent
• Check that consistent versions of GNAT were used for compilation
• Check consistency of configuration pragmas as required

Normally failure of such checks, in accordance with the consistency requirements of the Ada Reference Manual, causes error messages to be generated which abort the binder and prevent the output of a binder file and subsequent link to obtain an executable.

The -t switch converts these error messages into warnings, so that binding and linking can continue to completion even in the presence of such errors. The result may be a failed link (due to missing symbols), or a non-functional executable which has undefined semantics. This means that -t should be used only in unusual situations, with extreme care.