Re: FORTRAN Translation to Ada

[cbh@popeye.jsc.nasa.gov (Chuck Hoffman)]

In article <3eca34$fr6@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>, alexy@belknap.dartmouth.edu
(Alexy V. Khrabrov) wrote:

> I'm working on a system which translates FORTRAN to other
> high-level languages (HLL), first to Ada.  I need a well-documented
> code for various stages of FORTRAN parsing, transformation,
> and producing equivalent code in Pascal-type languages.
> If there are FORTRAN developers with compiler-related experience,
> I'd appreciate the following topics-related information:
> 
> FORTRAN Compilers Available with their Source Code
> 
> Documentation on the internal representation of FORTRAN
> in public-available Compilers, comprehensive description
> of their internal workings
> 
> Developer's experience with the renowned f2c system in
> the above spirit--exact role of each file, hints on
> where transformations are made better, all kind of knowledge
> necessary for modification of it targeting another language
> 
> FORTRAN to Ada efforts, and reusable components if any
> 
> My Ada friends: do you know of good reusable components
> for compiler-related works like FORTRAN to Ada translation?
> FORTRAN 77 with normal extensions is assumed, but any
> translation systems in Ada are of big interest.
> 
>         Alexy V. Khrabrov <khrabrov@cccc.com>
>         ``Age Quod Agis'' (Do what you're doing.)

Alexy

Not to be discouraging but ....

An company called Lexeme ( old address: Suite 250, commerce Court, Four
Station Square, Pittsburgh, PA - Phone (412) 281 5454 ) tried this in the
1985 - 1986 time frame. They were partially sucessful in that their
translator would convert Fortran'77 syntax to Ada syntax.  Unfortunately
the result -- which I'll call Adatran -- was worse (in terms of
understandibility ) than the Fortran that they stated with!  The true
power of the Ada language was completely ignored.  Our company contracted
Lexeme for a 'proof of concept' program translating a 40,000 SLOC Orbital
Analysis program to Ada.  The results were so discourraging that we
canceled the contract.  

You might try contacting Lexeme although I think they are out of business
now. There was an article published in the September 23, 1985 issue of
'Electronics' titled 'AI tools Automate Software Translation' that I
suggest you read.  My experience with software translators has been
uniformly poor ( except maybe limited to the module or subroutine level).

Chuck Hoffman 
Software Engineer
ReSoft, Inc.

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Chuck Hoffman            Barrios Technology, Inc.         Ph:(713)280-1831
cbh@popeye.jsc.nasa.gov                                  Fax:(713)280-1903
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