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17<title>Debugging with GDB: Ada Mode Intro</title>
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67Next: <a href="Omissions-from-Ada.html#Omissions-from-Ada" accesskey="n" rel="next">Omissions from Ada</a>, Up: <a href="Ada.html#Ada" accesskey="u" rel="up">Ada</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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70<a name="Introduction"></a>
71<h4 class="subsubsection">15.4.10.1 Introduction</h4>
72<a name="index-Ada-mode_002c-general"></a>
73
74<p>The Ada mode of <small>GDB</small> supports a fairly large subset of Ada expression
75syntax, with some extensions.
76The philosophy behind the design of this subset is
77</p>
78<ul>
79<li> That <small>GDB</small> should provide basic literals and access to operations for
80arithmetic, dereferencing, field selection, indexing, and subprogram calls,
81leaving more sophisticated computations to subprograms written into the
82program (which therefore may be called from <small>GDB</small>).
83
84</li><li> That type safety and strict adherence to Ada language restrictions
85are not particularly important to the <small>GDB</small> user.
86
87</li><li> That brevity is important to the <small>GDB</small> user.
88</li></ul>
89
90<p>Thus, for brevity, the debugger acts as if all names declared in
91user-written packages are directly visible, even if they are not visible
92according to Ada rules, thus making it unnecessary to fully qualify most
93names with their packages, regardless of context.  Where this causes
94ambiguity, <small>GDB</small> asks the user&rsquo;s intent.
95</p>
96<p>The debugger will start in Ada mode if it detects an Ada main program.
97As for other languages, it will enter Ada mode when stopped in a program that
98was translated from an Ada source file.
99</p>
100<p>While in Ada mode, you may use &lsquo;<tt>--</tt>&rsquo; for comments.  This is useful
101mostly for documenting command files.  The standard <small>GDB</small> comment
102(&lsquo;<samp>#</samp>&rsquo;) still works at the beginning of a line in Ada mode, but not in the
103middle (to allow based literals).
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