Certification & Object Orientation: The New Ada Answer

Cyrille Comar (1) , Robert Dewar , Gary Dismukes

1 AdaCore SAS - AdaCore SAS

The object model of Ada 2005 is well-suited for applications that have to meet certification at various levels. We review the use of Ada in the context of certification, and show that the object-oriented facilities of the current language standard, properly restricted to avoid dynamic dispatching, can already be used without problems under current DO-178B guidelines. We then examine the complications to certification that are presented by dynamic dispatching in a single inheritance model, and show implementation-specific ways of addressing these complications. Finally, we discuss the problems introduced by the use of multiple inheritance. We conclude by showing how, regardless of the extent to which object-oriented idioms are used, Ada provides a safe and efficient vehicle to create certifiable systems.

Keywords: Ada; DO-178B; Certification; Object- Oriented Programming

Domains: Computer Science [cs]; Embedded Systems

Cyrille Comar, Robert Dewar, Gary Dismukes. Certification & Object Orientation: The New Ada Answer. Conference ERTS'06, 2006, Toulouse, France. ⟨hal-02270498⟩