GNAT is a well-known compiler of the Ada programming language, based on the GCC compilation infrastructure. It has been written almost completely in the same Ada, and implements all the annexes of the standard, having been certified of it.
GNAT was originally developed by the University of New York (NYU), and in fact GNAT meant the GNU Translator of Ada from NYU (in its acronym GNU NYU Ada Translator), although GNAT is no longer considered to be an acronym . The company AdaCore, founded by some of the original creators of the compiler with the name Ada Core Technologies, is currently in charge of its maintenance and development. AdaCore periodically publishes public versions under the GPL.
GNAT includes a GCC frontend that translates Ada into the intermediate language which is compiled into object code by the GCC backend. GNAT includes other tools to facilitate the compilation of Ada as a make that infers the compilation dependencies directly from the source code.
GNAT was initially published separately from the official branch of GCC. On October 2, 2001, the GNAT source code was added to the GCC CVS repository. The last version published separately was GNAT 3.15p, based on GCC 2.8.1. AdaCore recommends not using the GNAT versions published under GCC 3.3 and earlier.
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