> Is there a Ada-specific method to add persistant data capabilities
> to an application?

I've seen this sort of question before.  It assumes that a "persistant
data" capability is well-defined and built into many languages already,
just like "object-oriented" or "multi-threaded" programming.

But looking at the web, references to "persistant data" include
data base interfaces (OO and otherwise), Javascript cookies, keeping
user-specific defaults in GUIs between log-in sessions, plain old file
systems, and I don't know what all.

If you're looking for an Ada analogue to something specific, we can
help you much better if you point out what specific thing you want.

Otherwise, I'll just say that Ada has all the power to "roll your own"
of any language.  It also has:

- well-defined interfaces to C, Fortran and Cobol, which help you
  interface to systems written for those languages;

- streams, which make it simple to read and write arbitrary objects
  using disk files or other storage media;

- controlled objects, which can help you build objects that get their
  initial values from global storage (e.g. a file) and store their
  values when they cease to exist;

- generics, which can help you build a persistence mechanism that you
  can then apply to any sort of data;

- tagged types, which can help you build an extensible persistance
  mechanism in an object-oriented framework, if you prefer that over
  using generics.

If that's not enough, let us know exactly what you're talking about!

Best,
Sam Mize

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