1. Programming Language Translation
Jamie McAtamney

2. Introduction Purpose: to write a fully functional translator
C to Java
Hasn’t been done before
Java has some advantages over C
Scope: as wide as possible
All the “basics”
Will attempt to translate modules
Might not get to graphics

3. Background Lack of similar research
Jazillian pay-per-program translation company
Terekhov & Verhoef’s article on translation difficulties
Sources of inspiration

4. Methodology Approach Read up on differences between C and Java
Make everything modular
Add modules for different translations
Have “translate()” methods to coordinate everything
Cover most common aspects first, not just simplest

5. Methodology Translation algorithm Tokenization Keyword search-replace
Keywords and punctuation
Keyword search-replace
Ex: char* → String
Context-sensitive search
Ex: printf(“\n”); → System.out.println();

6. Methodology Timeline Currently on tokenization
Problems writing in C
Step 1: Whole-line translation
Step 2: Primitive types
Step 3: Input/output
Step 4: Structs → Classes
Step 5: Modules
Step 6: ???

7. Methodology Testing & Analysis Reading in old C programs
More structure than functionality testing
Mostly debugging so far

8. Methodology Problems: C tokenizer didn’t work
Translator moved C → Java
Limited test base
Few basic structures
Not always direct analogs

9. Progress Preliminary Results Program works Full-line translation works
Search-replace will work; not yet implemented
Still working on it at this point

10. Progress Analysis Too early to draw conclusions
No visuals
No “degrees” of success
No major changes in initial plan/hypothesis
No great new insights/ideas yet
Everything’s on track