7.3.6.14 Exporting Ada Entities

Building a DLL is a way to encapsulate a set of services usable from any application. As a result, the Ada entities exported by a DLL should be exported with the C or Stdcall calling conventions to avoid any Ada name mangling. As an example here is an Ada package API, spec and body, exporting two procedures, a function, and a variable:

with Interfaces.C; use Interfaces;
package API is
   Count : C.int := 0;
   function Factorial (Val : C.int) return C.int;

   procedure Initialize_API;
   procedure Finalize_API;
   --  Initialization & Finalization routines. More in the next section.
private
   pragma Export (C, Initialize_API);
   pragma Export (C, Finalize_API);
   pragma Export (C, Count);
   pragma Export (C, Factorial);
end API;

package body API is
   function Factorial (Val : C.int) return C.int is
      Fact : C.int := 1;
   begin
      Count := Count + 1;
      for K in 1 .. Val loop
         Fact := Fact * K;
      end loop;
      return Fact;
   end Factorial;

   procedure Initialize_API is
      procedure Adainit;
      pragma Import (C, Adainit);
   begin
      Adainit;
   end Initialize_API;

   procedure Finalize_API is
      procedure Adafinal;
      pragma Import (C, Adafinal);
   begin
      Adafinal;
   end Finalize_API;
end API;

If the Ada DLL you are building will only be used by Ada applications you do not have to export Ada entities with a C or Stdcall convention. As an example, the previous package could be written as follows:

package API is
   Count : Integer := 0;
   function Factorial (Val : Integer) return Integer;

   procedure Initialize_API;
   procedure Finalize_API;
   --  Initialization and Finalization routines.
end API;

package body API is
   function Factorial (Val : Integer) return Integer is
      Fact : Integer := 1;
   begin
      Count := Count + 1;
      for K in 1 .. Val loop
         Fact := Fact * K;
      end loop;
      return Fact;
   end Factorial;

   ...
   --  The remainder of this package body is unchanged.
end API;

Note that if you do not export the Ada entities with a C or Stdcall convention you will have to provide the mangled Ada names in the definition file of the Ada DLL (Creating the Definition File).