AdaCore Announces Innovative Stack Analysis Tool for Safety-Critical Applications.BOSTON -- AdaCore, provider of the highest quality Ada tools and support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services , today announced the immediate availability of GNATstack, a static analysis tool that helps developers predict the maximum stack usage requirements for their applications. GNATstack is available separately or as part of AdaCore's GNAT gnat, common name for any one of a number of small, fragile-looking two-winged flies of the suborder Nematocera, order Diptera, which includes the families Tipulidae (crane flies), Bibionidae (hairflies), Ceratopogonidae (biting midges), Chironomidae (true midges), Pro High-Integrity Edition products, supporting development for DO-178B, DO-278 and other related safety-critical standards. The GNATstack tool statically calculates the maximum stack space required by each task in an application. The computed bounds can be used to ensure that sufficient space is reserved, thus guaranteeing safe, predictable execution with respect to stack usage. GNATstack uses conservative analysis to deal with complexities such as subprogram sub·pro·gram n. A computer program contained within another program that operates semi-independently of the encasing program. Noun 1. recursion In programming, the ability of a subroutine or program module to call itself. It is helpful for writing routines that solve problems by repeatedly processing the output of the same process. See recurse subdirectories. , while avoiding unnecessarily pessimistic estimates. The tool's output data can be used directly to satisfy DO-178B requirements (Table A-5, Objective 6, which relates to the Accuracy and consistency issues itemized in Section 6.3.4f) and the associated sections from DO-278 for native safety systems. "AdaCore always strives to reduce the cost of software development for our customers," said Robert Dewar, President of AdaCore. "GNATstack can save a large amount of time and effort by proving what an application's maximum memory requirements will be. This information can be used to select the appropriate hardware platform. It can also be used to prove that the selected platform will meet the application's memory requirements, which is required by DO-178B and similar safety standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. where exhausting available memory is not an option." GNATstack exploits data generated by the compiler to compute worst-case stack requirements. It performs per-subprogram stack usage computation combined with control flow analysis. GNATstack is a static analysis tool in that its computation is based on information known at compile time The time it takes to translate a program from source language into machine language. Linker time may also be included in compile time. See compile and linker. (programming) compile time . Thus when the tool indicates that the result is accurate, the computed bound can never be exceeded. On the other hand, there may be situations in which the results will not be accurate (the tool will indicate such situations) because of some missing information (due to subprogram recursion, indirect calls, etc.). AdaCore provides the infrastructure to allow users to specify this missing call graph A call graph (also known as a call multigraph) is a directed graph that represents calling relationship among subroutines in a computer program. It shows a certain indication about a program's control flow (but is not the same as a control flow graph) and it can be partially and stack usage information. GNATstack's main output is the worst-case stack usage for every entry point, together with the paths that lead to these stack needs. The list of entry points can be automatically computed (all the tasks, including the environment task) or can be specified by the user (a list of entry points or all the subprograms matching a certain regular expression). Price and Availability GNATstack is available with all GNAT Pro High-Integrity Edition Family products. Pricing for GNAT Pro subscriptions starts at $14,000. Please contact AdaCore (sales@adacore.com) for the latest information on pricing and supported configurations. About AdaCore Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where reliability, efficiency and safety are critical. AdaCore's flagship product A primary product of a company, which is typically why the company was founded and/or what made it well known. For example, MS-DOS, Windows and the Microsoft Office suite have been flagship products of Microsoft. CorelDRAW is a flagship product of Corel Corporation. is GNAT Pro, which comes with expert online support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has customers worldwide; see http://www.adacore.com/home/company/customers/ for more information. AdaCore has a large world-wide customer base in high-integrity and safety-certified applications, including avionics, defense, air traffic control, railroad systems, financial services and medical devices. AdaCore has North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. headquarters in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and European headquarters in Paris. www.adacore.com |
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