Re: Ada95 to ANSI_C converter

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Steve says

<<It's amazing that Ada can be translated to machine code and is so difficult
  to translate to 'C'.  After all 'C' isn't really that much different than
  machine code is it? ;-)>>

Yes, it is not hard to generate completely impossible to read, highly
inefficient C that works.

<<Has anyone done any work to make the GCC back end generate 'C' code?  It
  seems that this might be beneficial
  to all ports that use the GCC back end.>>

The benefit of such a back end would be minimal. It would help a little bit
for bootstrapping GNAT, but that use would not justify the effort, which
would be comparable to doing a new port to a new architecture. I see no
respect in which this would be "beneficial to all ports ...".

No one ever expressed serious interest in such a project, but if they did,
it is certainly something that could be done. Perhaps a person year of
effort would be needed to complete such a project in a reasonably
productized manner. Remember that gcc is MUCH more flexible than C,
so there is no sense in which this would be anything like a direct
translation -- for example if you fed in C, out would come unreadable
rubbish.

The point is that when people ask for Ada to C conversion, they almost
always have in mind a translator that would produce human usable output.
A processor of the kind you suggest seems basically useless to me!