Re: Ada to C translator for small microcontrollers

[kalvin.news@gmail.com]

keskiviikkona 28. maaliskuuta 2012 19.36.37 UTC+3 Niklas Holsti kirjoitti:
> It is true that C does not provide all the features of assembly 
> language, for all that it is called a "portable assembler". But I'm not 
> sure that this would be a large handicap for an Ada compiler that uses C 
> as an intermediate language (like the SofCheck one).
> 
> The C level could be a performance bottleneck if one wanted to support 
> wider numbers in Ada than the C compiler supports -- for example, an Ada 
> 64-bit Long_Integer with a C compiler that supports only 32-bit integers 
> -- but this is a marginal effect, I think.

Yes, the translator should be implemented so, that it would be compatible with the target C ie. no support for 64-bit integers etc. if the target C compiler doesn't support that. 

Nested procedures are also a bit tricy to implement in C, as the local stack frame needs to made visible to the inner procedure. This is doable with the struct of pointers passed as parameters for the "inner procedure", I guess. It is up to target C compiler optimization how much penalty there will be.

Br,
Kalvin