Ada-Changer

Find quick answers to your questions about Ada-Changer product

• What I expect from you is a syntax translator. In this particular case, what prevents you from translating it as a C “long long” type?

  It will be the job of the C compiler that I will choose independently from Ada-C/C++ Changer, to verify if the long long is implemented on my HW platform. The location where I translate may not be the...

• I have several warnings about installation when executing my batch file. Is it a problem?

  See joined files “batch.txt + batch.bat”. We will need to provide you with a “SITE/config” file and a “rtl/src/system.spc” that matches your current compiler’s configuration. We ship by default with a...

• Why are .h and .c files created for each Ada file? I expected the Foo.1.ada file to be converted to Foo.h and the Foo.2.ada to be converted as Foo.c. Instead, I get a pair of .h and .c files for the Foo.1.ada and Foo.2.ada files.

  A single Ada source file can have any kind of code within it, though some compilers are more restrictive than that and use specific naming conventions (such as Rational’s .1.ada and .2.ada, or AdaCore...

• The .h and .c files were created, but all it contained were the comments. No errors were reported in the command console. Why were these files not converted?

  This normally means there was some compile-time error, or it might be that the file produces no code. This might happen for a generic package or generic subprogram, which produce code only when instan...

• We don’t understand some of the ADA custom type conversions Type Reset_Data_Type is (One, Two, Three, Four) was converted to Const Integer Reset_data_type_enum_integer_table[4]={3,6,11,15};Const Character Test_data_type_enum_image_table[11]= {“ONETWOTHREEFOUR”}

  Ada provides ‘Image’ and ‘Value’ functions for every enumeration type, and so the compiler needs to build up a table of information that allows an internal enumeration value to be turned into a string...

• The interface of functions with Ada String parameters is changed and we had trouble understanding the body of the operation Procedure Printf(Msg: String) was converted to extern void Printf(const Character * const Msg, int32 const * Msg__dope). Explain.

  In Ada, every unconstrained array also carries information on its array bounds. This is traditionally called the array “dope.” So when an array is passed, we also need to pass information on the low a...

• A lot of types were not converted and carried over to the ‘C’ files. There were no errors issued by the compiler. Why?

  All of these types should be carried over into the generated code, unless there was a compilation error. Note that many of these may have ended up in the “.h” file rather than the “.c” file. Be sure t...

• While evaluating Ada-C/C++ Changer, C code generated is around 5 times more than ADA code. Why is this?

  The amount of C code will depend on the complexity of the Ada constructs being used in the Ada source code. ...

• Apart from the I/O packages for each instantiation, what is the rate of lines of code increase when converting Ada->C? Also, are there any options in Ada-C/C++ Changer to reduce this increase?

  It varies from 1.5 to 1 to 3 to 1, depending on the complexity of the Ada source code. Heavy use of string concatenation and dynamic aggregates produces more C code, since C doesn’t really have any eq...

• Conversion tools like AdaMagic only cover 70% - 80%. Do you have any data about the percentage of your coverage of Ada-C/C++ Changer?

  We convert 100% of the Ada source into C, with no human intervention required whatsoever. Our tool is based on a fully validated Ada compiler, which handles the full Ada 95 language. It produces effic...