From bloom-picayune.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!cis.ksu.edu!mac Sat Nov 9 03:41:51 EST 1991 Article: 514 of alt.cobol Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!cis.ksu.edu!mac From: mac@cis.ksu.edu (Myron A. Calhoun) Newsgroups: alt.cobol Subject: Re: COBOL to C? Date: 8 Nov 91 14:09:35 GMT Organization: Kansas State University Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <1218@rufus.UUCP> NNTP-Posting-Host: depot.cis.ksu.edu drake@drake.almaden.ibm.com (Sam Drake) writes: >Sure, someone could write a translator. Unfortunately, COBOL >uses a number of data types and concepts that C doesn't provide >(like decimal arithmetic and record-oriented files), so you'd >need some fairly hefty runtime library. And some of the COBOL >transfer-of-control constructs (PERFORM X THROUGH Y, GOTO., etc) >are pretty interesting to get right. But sure, it's doable. >I am not aware of any such translators. Maybe this bstract of a Ph.D. Dissertation from Kansas State University will prove interesting: "The primary objective of this dissertation is to discuss the difficulties encountered in, and to explore possible solutions to, the task of automatically converting programs written in one HLL, COBOL, into programs written in another HLL, Ada, and still maintain readability. "This paper presents at least one set of techniques and algorithms to solve many of the problems that were encountered. The differing view of records is solved by isolating those instances where it is a problem, then using the 'RENAMES; option of Ada. Several solutions to doing the decimal arithmetic translation are discussed. One method used is to emulate COBOL arithmetic in an arithmetic package. Another partial solution suggested is to convert the values to decimal-scaled integers and use modular arithmetic. Conversion to fixed-point type and floating-point type are the third and fourth methods. The work of another researcher, Bobby Othmer, is utilized to correct any unstructured code, to remap statements not directly translatable such as ALTER, and to pull together isolated code sections. Algorithms are then presented to convert this restructured COBOL code into Ada code with local variables, parameters, and packages. The input/output requirements are partially met by mapping them to a series of procedure calls that interface with Ada's standard input-output package. Several examples are given of hand-translations of COBOL programs. "In addition, a possibly new method is shown for measuring the readability of programs." --Myron. -- # We preserve our freedoms using three boxes: ballot, jury, and cartridge. # Myron A. Calhoun, PhD EE; Associate Professor (913) 539-4448 home # INTERNET: mac@cis.ksu.edu (129.130.10.5) 532-6350 work, 532-7353 fax # UUCP: ...rutgers!ksuvax1!depot!mac W0PBV @ K0VAY.KS.USA.NA