Tada

Abracadabra was too long. Tomek's Ada, too obvious. An opinionated package management tool for Ada.

Tada handles building, testing, and running Ada packages. It wraps GPRbuild with sensible defaults and a simple package manifest (tada.toml), so you spend less time writing build scripts and more time writing Ada.

Status

This is alpha software. I'm actively working it. YMMV.

Tested on Linux x86_64, MacOS ARM and Windows x86_64.

Prerequisites

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install curl gnat gprbuild

Installation

See Releases.

curl -L https://github.com/tomekw/tada/releases/download/VERSION/tada-VERSION-PLATFORM -o tada && chmod +x tada

Copy it somewhere on your PATH:

cp tada ~/.local/bin/

Once installed, Tada can build itself:

tada build --profile release

Usage

Usage: tada [command] [options]

Commands:
    init <name> [--exe|--lib]           Create a new package
    build [--profile <p>]               Compile the package
    run [--profile <p>] [-- <args>...]  Build and run the executable
    test [--profile <p>]                Build and run the tests
    install                             Install dependencies
    clean                               Remove build artifacts
    help                                Show this message
    version                             Display version

The workflow, for now, is still somewhat manual:

1. Create a new package with tada init, either a binary with --exe or a library with --lib.
2. Run tada install to install dependencies.
3. Build with tada build. Profile is either --debug or --release. --debug is the default.
4. Run with tada run. -- separates arguments passed to the target binary.
5. Test with tada test.
6. Remove target/ with tada clean.

To add a new dependency:

1. Add the dependency to your tada.toml, e.g. bar = "0.5.2" under [dependencies] or [dev-dependencies].
2. Run tada install.
3. Use with to import the dependency's units in your Ada code. Build, test, and run as usual.

Manifest file

[package]
name = "foo"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
bar = "0.5.2"
baz = "1.2.1"

[dev-dependencies]
testy = "0.1.0"

Package naming rules

• can't be empty
• is all lower-case
• letters, numbers and underscores only
• can't be Ada's reserved word
• can't start with a number or underscore
• can't end with an underscore
• can't have two consecutive underscores

Testing

Tada's own test suite uses Testy:

tada test

Packages

See the Packages Index.

If there's something you have built with Tada, and would like to have it included in the index, let me know!

Disclaimer

This codebase is written by hand. Claude Code is used for Socratic design exploration and code review.

License

EUPL