Ada Conformity Assessment Test Suite

The Ada Conformity Assessment Test Suite (ACATS) is the test suite used for Ada

Ada (programming language)

Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...

processor conformity testing.

The preface to the test report includes the following:

Conformity assessment does not ensure that a processor has no nonconformities to the Ada standard other than those, if any, documented in this report. The compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

vendor declares that the tested processor contains no deliberate deviation from the Ada standard; a copy of this Declaration of Conformity is presented immediately after the certificate.

The second paragraph of the background of the current ACAA procedures says:

It is important to note the scope and intent of conformity assessment. The purpose of conformity assessment is to ensure that Ada processors achieve a high degree of conformity with the Ada standard (Ada95 as corrected by [TC1]). Characteristics such as performance and suitability for a particular application are not specified by the standard, and thus are outside the scope of Ada conformity assessment. Moreover, the ACATS is a set of test programs intended to check broadly for correct implementation; it is not possible to exhaustively test for conformity. Thus, conformity is checked only to the extent of these tests; processors that are certified as conforming may fail to conform to the standard in ways peculiar to each, under particular circumstances.

The ACATS consists of 1821 tests with 255,838 lines of code occupying 30 MB of storage. The test suite is publicly available and for example part of the sources to the GNU Compiler Collection

GNU Compiler Collection

The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

, which also contains an Ada compiler.

See also