Ada 95: Modifying output of dictionary program

Question

I've found this dictionary by William Whitaker on the Internet and I like its parsing capabilities. But the output doesn't fit for me.

The issue (challenge for me):

Given an input form such as "audiam", the program returns the following output (plain text):

audi.am              V      4 1 PRES ACTIVE  SUB 1 S    
audi.am              V      4 1 FUT  ACTIVE  IND 1 S    
audio, audire, audivi, auditus  V (4th)   [XXXAO]  
hear, listen, accept, agree with; obey; harken, pay attention; be able to hear;

But I just want to receive the following text output (same input: audiam):

audiam=audio, audire, audivi, auditus

That is:

InputWord=Dictionary_Forms

So some pieces of information are needless for me.

How can I change the output of this program by modifying the Ada code?

I don't have any Ada knowledge, but I know Delphi/Pascal so it's quite easy to understand the code, isn't it? So the parts causing the text output seem to be the TEXT_IO.PUT(...) statements, right? They're all called in list_package.adb so this is probably the source file to look at.

What has to be changed in particular?

The full Ada 95 source code of this program is available on this page.

I hope some of you are able to understand Ada 95 code. Thank you very much in advance!

My compiling problems:

For use on a windows machine, I downloaded MinGW and tried to compile the source files using "MinGW Shell". But this was my input and the shell's reponse:

Compiling with the latest Cygwin version:

When I compile the program using the latest version of Cygwin, there is no error message:

There is even an .exe file which is created. Its size is 1.6 MB (1,682,616 bytes). But when I open it, it closes right away. What has gone wrong?

Answer 1

As much as I like Ada and would encourage you to learn the minimal amount it would require to hack it the way you want...

Really, you are asking for a simple data filter, which it would be quite easy to accomplish by piping your output to awk. If you are running on any flavor of Linux you have awk already (and really should learn to use it). If you are on Windows, you can get awk and all sorts of other useful goodies from MinGW, which is one of the places you'd need to go to get an Ada compiler anyway.

If you do want a Windows Ada compiler, I'd suggest getting GNAT/GCC from there. The two other flavors available, GNAT/GPL and GNAT/PRO are available from AdaCore (the maintainers). However, GNAT/PRO must be purchased and GNAT/GPL renders distributions of any program compiled using it GPL. You might not mind the GPL applying to your program I suppose, but I'm guessing this isn't a serious enough need to spring for commercial support.

If you are on Linux, the GNAT Ada compiler should be available with GCC as an option (if not installed by default). The same two other options from AdaCore are available there too of course, if you like.

---

Well, you asked about learning Ada. Really, if you are familiar with other compiled procedural languages (eg: C/C++, Java, Pascal, Modula-2, etc.) you shouldn't have too much trouble picking it up. This question covers Ada books. For myself, I generally just use the official LRM as a reference. Unlike most languages, Ada has an internationally standardized Language Reference Manual that is available online for free. It is also quite readable, as such things go.

Answer 2

William Whitaker's Words is a handy tool. You may be able to find a version already built for your platform. I've not changed the code, but you can alter some things using various parameters. It's even hosted online. If you get an Ada compiler, I've included the last Makefile I used. It's a little thin on abstraction, but it includes the essential steps to compile the program and utilities, along with the steps to build the dictionaries.

TARG = words
ARGS = -O

$(TARG): *.ad[bs]
    gnatmake $(TARG) $(ARGS)

all: $(TARG)
    gnatmake makedict $(ARGS)
    gnatmake makeinfl $(ARGS)
    gnatmake makestem $(ARGS)
    gnatmake makeefil $(ARGS)
    @echo Please make the dicitionary
    @echo ./makedict DICTLINE.GEN
    @echo ./makestem STEMLIST.GEN
    @echo ./makeefil EWDSLIST.GEN
    @echo ./makeinfl INFLECTS.GEN

debug:
    gnatmake -g $(TARG)

clean:
    rm -f *.o *.ali b~* core

cleaner: clean
    rm -f *.s makedict makeinfl makestem makeefil

cleanest: cleaner
    rm -f $(TARG)

Addendum: One approach is to use gcc 4.4.3 on Ubuntu 10.04 with the updated Makefile above. For convenience, I used VirtualBox to host the linux instance.

$ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) 4.4.3
Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Here's a quick test using the title of my second favorite passage from Catulli Carmina.

$ ./words odi et amo
odi                  V      6 1 PRES ACTIVE  IMP 2 S    
odeo, odire, odivi(ii), -  V TRANS   [EXXCW]    Later
od.i                 V      4 1 PRES ACTIVE  IMP 2 S    
odio, odire, odivi, -  V (4th) TRANS   [FXXCF]    Medieval
hate; dislike; be disinclined/reluctant/adverse to; (usu. PREFDEF);
odi                  N      2 4 GEN S N                   Early   
odium, odi(i)  N (2nd) N   [XXXAO]  
hate/hatred/dislike/antipathy; odium, unpopularity; boredom/impatience;
hatred (manifested by/towards group), hostility; object of hate/odium;
od.i                 V      3 1 PERF ACTIVE  IND 1 S    
odi, odisse, osus  V (3rd) PERFDEF   [XXXBX]  
hate (PERF form, PRES force), dislike; be disinclined/reluctant/adverse to;

et                   CONJ                               
et  CONJ   [XXXAX]  
and, and even; also, even;  (et ... et = both ... and);

am.o                 V      1 1 PRES ACTIVE  IND 1 S    
amo, amare, amavi, amatus  V (1st)   [XXXAO]  
love, like; fall in love with; be fond of; have a tendency to;

Addendum: Once you've got it running, the problem of modifying it remains. A grep for Put_Line\( shows 629 hits; most are in line_stuff and list*. That's where I'd start. As you are learning Ada, there are several good tutorials here.

Answer 3

About compiling: you can use GNAT. It supports Ada83, Ada95, and Ada05. To tell it to use Ada95, use the -gnat95 switch.

You can get it on http://libre.adacore.com/