Re: Ada to C translator for small microcontrollers

[anon@att.net]

Full language translators are mostly used to move a project away from  
one language to another more accessable language. So, why use Ada in
the first place. 

Now, if you add the code for a new processor to GNU GCC and GNAT then 
most languages are avialable for use. Not just Ada and C/C++, but you 
can also have Fortran, Java, and etc.

Plus, before using language translators you should understand that most 
only aid in the translating a subset of the full language. Like "C2Ada" 
which partially converted C code to Ada. 

And some translators are limited. Like a number of years ago when Adacore 
drop the Glade package for Annex E (Distributed Systems) for polyorb I 
wrote a pure Ada "RPC_Generator" program. This program convert the "Remote 
Procedure Call" Language (a C like language) to Ada. Allowing Ada to use 
the full functions of a RPC package. The program could be used with Ada 
only design or injunction with other "RPCGEN" programs for other languages 
to allow a more multiple language style of distributed system.


RPC_Generator -- "Remote Procedure Call" Language to Ada Language.

This utility creates both the client and server packages for the RPC in 
Ada. In either a single standard Ada file package structure or the 
body/specification files set used by GNAT.


In <18324383.19.1332841560517.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbht7>, kalvin.news@gmail.com writes:
>As Niklas and Georg pointed well out, SofCheck (www.sofcheck.com) provides such an Ada (95) compiler, which will emit corresponding C source as its output. This may not be freely available, though?.
>
>maanantaina 26. maaliskuuta 2012 22.16.01 UTC+3 an...@att.net kirjoitti:
>> But the power of GNU GCC and GNAT is that you can add code for any 
>> processor you want. There are some infomation on the web that will 
>> help in adding a new target processor.
>
>Maybe this might be the easiest path to follow. Although GNAT implements full Ada language, it might be able to define smaller subset that the front-end and/or back-end will support for given target C language.
>
>There is also GPL Ada to C/C++ translator, but I have not looked at this yet:
>http://adatoccpptranslator.free.fr/
>It seems that this tool is mainly aimed to aid the process of translating existing Ada source code to C/C++. However, the GPL'd source code is available.
>
>Br,
>Kalvin