Adabase: a data base for Ada programs

A central part of any programming support environment is the data base that stores all project information. This paper presents the design of Adabase, a data base that manages Ada program families. Program families consist of multiple versions and configurations, and family members share a significant number of common parts. Besides Ada program modules and configurations, Adabase stores documentation and project control information. A set of high-level operations perform controlled update, propagation of interface changes, and automatic system generation. The logical data base structure is an attributed, directed graph. Since the standard, intermediate representation of Ada programs, Diana, is also an attributed, directed graph, we achieve a seamless integration of the two by formulating Ada-base in IDL, the metalanguage in which Diana is described.