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Integration Watch: Java to C: No mean feat


By Andrew Binstock
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September 15, 2008 —  (Page 1 of 3)

A few weeks ago, a client contacted me to see whether I would be interested in working on a project to convert a 150,000-line Java codebase to C. Before responding, I decided to see what tools were available. Given the nearly infinite variety of open-source projects and the fact that C and Java dominate OSS projects, I figured there would be the usual wealth of tool choices available to automate the conversion.

To my amazement, I discovered only a few resources—and those were mostly abandoned or dying projects; one-off commercial tools on rarely updated Web sites; and, in the case of GNU GCJ, a product that supports only Java 1.2. There’s no good, comprehensive solution. So, how to proceed?

One possible approach is to convert code semi-automatically: Put some pieces in place, use a set of filters (in AWK or Perl) to partially convert the Java, then finish the job by hand. The pieces you’d have to put in place are substantial but not overwhelming: A garbage collector (I’d use the Boehm-Demers-Weiser), implementation of basic Java classes (such as String, some collections and some File classes) to which new classes are added as needed and, finally, some kind of object model. The latter requirement is challenging; creating one from scratch requires lots of careful thinking.

One solution is to use the GObject model from Glib (part of the Gnome open-source project), which is written in C. This would solve the problem of an object model, but it’s an unforgiving path. First of all, it requires a long learning curve and a lot of boilerplate code. Second, it means you have to ship some of the Gnome libraries with your product. Gnome is a great project for Linux, but its support for other platforms, especially Windows, is weak.

The Vala project in Gnome seeks to produce a simple OO language that compiles to C and uses Glib. This would be an almost ideal solution, were it not for the fragility of the project, which is still early in its development cycle and, once again, is unfriendly to platforms other than Linux. Essentially, if you choose the source code translation path, you’ll need to write your own object model and develop your own quasi-OO syntax to match the Java you’re working with.


Related Search Term(s): Java, open source, software development

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Comments


02/12/2010 08:23:53 AM EST

Hi, Andrew! A bit belated comment but... Among GCJ and JC projects, I could mention a JCGO (www.ivmaisoft.com/jcgo) one, a Java source to C translator. Given the sources of the Java program, it translates all the sources at once producing readable platform-independent C code which could further be compiled to a binary executable for the targeted platform. The produced executable does not contain nor require a Java Virtual Machine to execute, so its resource requirements are smaller than that required by a typical Java VM.

Russia (Russian Federation)Ivan Maidanski


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