C to Ada translator

[dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!news!shrike.irvine.com !mark@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark Schimmel)]

Irvine Compiler Corporation (ICC) has agreed to let me release (in
executable form only for now) the C header file to Ada translator
that I've written.  This is a preliminary trial release to get
feed-back on its Ada portability and performance.  It is my hope that
it will be provided in source form soon.  Please be patient.

As an example of how c2ada works, I'm hoping to include an example
that converts X-windows C header files to Ada entirely automatically.
The translation is fast (approximately 6 seconds for all Xlib files on
an HP-9000/710) and (hopefully) 100% complete.  The generated Ada
files should compile using any Ada compiler that supports pragma
INTERFACE (to C) and pragma INTERFACE_NAME.  I'm also including a
"hello world" program which uses the binding.  You will find more
documentation about the implementation details with the release.


RATIONALE

The C programming language enjoys a great deal of popularity thanks to
its free distribution with the Unix operating system and its early
acceptance among the academic community.  Large amounts of useful
software, libraries and algorithms are freely available to C
programmers just for the asking.  I'd like to provide a means of
making this software base easily accessible to Ada programmers as
well.


DISTRIBUTION

Please send me mail if you would like a copy of the translator.  I
will uuencode and send it to you.  Be sure to provide the type of
machine you'd like it to run on (Sparc, Sun-3, PC, SGI, HP, MIPS,
etc.) and the operating system you're using.  I'm not promising to
have a port for your particular target, so be prepared for a "sorry,
its not ready yet" reply.  I am purposely NOT providing the names of
the currently supported hosts because I'm interested in seeing which
systems are being used for Ada development out there in "net-land".