Annex B
Parameterization Files

In ACATS 3.0, two methods are used to account for the use of implementation-dependent values in the tests.

For legacy tests, a "macro" substitution technique is used. Legacy tests requiring implementation-specific values contain symbols beginning with the '$' character; for example, the symbol $INTEGER_LAST is used where the code expects the implementation-specific integer literal representing the largest integer. For each implementation, these symbols must be systematically replaced with the appropriate values. A data file, MACRO.DFS, and an Ada program, Macrosub, are provided to facilitate this substitution.

For tests written since the standardization of [Ada95], a hierearchy of packages is provided that contain constants and functions that provide the desired implementation-specific values. These packages ("ImpDef" and its children) should be modified for each implementation to provide the needed values.

Information regarding the macro substitution technique is presented in Sections B.1 and B.2. Section B.3 describes the ImpDef package hierarchy.