* WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator
@ 1988-07-01 0:19 Phil Mason
1988-07-01 0:22 ` Phil Mason
1988-07-07 18:39 ` Jonathan Zweig
0 siblings, 2 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Phil Mason @ 1988-07-01 0:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
I have an important application for a "C" to ADA Translator. It doesn't even
have to translate all "C" constructs or strange pointer operations.
I thought I saw one on the net within the last two years. Was I dreaming??
Any help would be most appreciated.
Commericial/Public Domain/Shareware solutions welcome.
- - - Philm
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator
1988-07-01 0:19 WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator Phil Mason
@ 1988-07-01 0:22 ` Phil Mason
1988-07-07 18:39 ` Jonathan Zweig
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Phil Mason @ 1988-07-01 0:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
Blast! My signature got left off the previous posting.
Here it is :
--
Kirk : Bones ? | Phil Mason, Astronautics Technology Center
Bones : He's dead Jim. | Madison, Wisconsin - "Eat Cheese or Die!"
...seismo-uwvax-astroatc!philm | I would really like to believe that my
...ihnp4-nicmad/ | employer shares all my opinions, but . . .
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator
1988-07-01 0:19 WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator Phil Mason
1988-07-01 0:22 ` Phil Mason
@ 1988-07-07 18:39 ` Jonathan Zweig
1988-07-14 5:39 ` Bill.Stewart.[ho95c]
1 sibling, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread
From: Jonathan Zweig @ 1988-07-07 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
In my experience, it takes a month or so to come up to speed as a so-so
Ada programmer if you've got experience programming in other languages.
C to Ada translation? I vote hiring somebody to do it by hand at five or
six bucks an hour. If the code is too icky to translate by hand with a
sufficiently high degree of confidence that you've preserved the
functionality, then rewrite the program(s).
-Johnny Zweig
Institute for Defense Analyses/ Computer and Software Engineering
Division.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
* Re: WANTED : DEAD OR ALIVE - "C" to ADA Translator
1988-07-07 18:39 ` Jonathan Zweig
@ 1988-07-14 5:39 ` Bill.Stewart.[ho95c]
0 siblings, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Bill.Stewart.[ho95c] @ 1988-07-14 5:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <401@csed-1.IDA.ORG> zweig@csed-1.IDA.ORG (Jonathan Zweig) writes:
:C to Ada translation? I vote hiring somebody to do it by hand at five or
:six bucks an hour. If the code is too icky to translate by hand with a
:sufficiently high degree of confidence that you've preserved the
:functionality, then rewrite the program(s).
Translating Pascal or Fortran to C is reasonable, since the semantics
of C (almost) include the semantics of the other two languages.
Translating C to Ada is another story - there's too much difference in
semantics.
First of all, C makes heavy use of pointers, which Ada
considers to be evil and dangerous, and sometimes it uses them for
things that really *are* evil and dangerous and just can't be faked.
Second, C is a weakly-typed language, and real programs often take
advantage of this - a translator would need too much intelligence about
what's really going on to work around these problems.
Even if you find a translator, don't expect the resulting Ada code to
be human-readable or maintainable - and if you lose that, you lose most
of the reason for Ada. Either higher some <undergrads or contractors>,
or check out the interfaces between C and Ada provided by your Ada
system. You'll probably have to write a lot of package definitions.
If you're only using Ada because you're working on a military contract
(shame on you) see how flexible your contracting officer is about such
things - while new code may have to be Ada, existing code usually can
be grandfathered in.
--
# Thanks;
#Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread
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1988-07-01 0:22 ` Phil Mason
1988-07-07 18:39 ` Jonathan Zweig
1988-07-14 5:39 ` Bill.Stewart.[ho95c]
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