2. System Setup¶
As explained in the introduction, GPS can currently only be extended by programming in Ada. This assumes that a number of tools are available on your system, so that you can recompile your new module.
Most of these external tools and libraries are available from http://libre.act-europe.fr.
GNAT 3.15 or above
GNAT is the GNU Ada Compiler, integrated into the gcc tool chain, and developed by Ada Core Technologies and ACT Europe. GPS will not compile with other Ada compilers than GNAT.
Gtk+ 2.2.0 or above
gtk+ is a C toolkit used for the graphical interface of GPS. It is available on a number of platforms, including most UNIX systems and Windows. Available from http://www.gtk.org.
GPS sources
The GPS sources include the corresponding GNAT, GtkAda and GVD sources needed to build it. If needed, GNAT, GtkAda and GVD sources can be obtained seperately from anonymous cvs access from http://libre.act-europe.fr
The GPS sources contain an INSTALL file that explains how to recompile GPS itself. GPS knows how to dynamically load a module. As a result, you do not necessarily need to rebuild GPS itself to add new modules, although the dynamic loading hasn’t been fully tested yet and might not work on all platforms.