1.4 A Note to Readers of Previous Versions of the Manual

In early 2015 the GNAT manuals were transitioned to the reStructuredText (rst) / Sphinx documentation generator technology. During that process the GNAT User's Guide was reorganized so that related topics would be described together in the same chapter or appendix. Here's a summary of the major changes realized in the new document structure.

• The GNAT Compilation Model has been extended so that it now covers the following material:
  • The gnatname, gnatkr, and gnatchop tools
  • Configuration Pragmas
  • GNAT and Libraries
  • Conditional Compilation including Preprocessing with gnatprep and Integrated Preprocessing
  • Generating Ada Bindings for C and C++ headers
  • Using GNAT Files with External Tools
• Building Executable Programs with GNAT is a new chapter consolidating the following content:
  • Building with gnatmake
  • Compiling with gcc
  • Binding with gnatbind
  • Linking with gnatlink
  • Using the GNU make Utility
• GNAT Utility Programs is a new chapter consolidating the information about several GNAT tools:
  • The File Cleanup Utility gnatclean
  • The GNAT Library Browser gnatls
  • The Cross-Referencing Tools gnatxref and gnatfind
  • The Ada to HTML Converter gnathtml
• GNAT and Program Execution is a new chapter consolidating the following:
  • Running and Debugging Ada Programs
  • Code Coverage and Profiling
  • Improving Performance
  • Overflow Check Handling in GNAT
  • Performing Dimensionality Analysis in GNAT
  • Stack Related Facilities
  • Memory Management Issues
• Platform-Specific Information is a new appendix consolidating the following:
  • Run-Time Libraries
  • Microsoft Windows Topics
  • Mac OS Topics
• The Compatibility and Porting Guide appendix has been moved to the GNAT Reference Manual. It now includes a section Writing Portable Fixed-Point Declarations which was previously a separate chapter in the GNAT User's Guide.