TURBO PASCAL TO POWER BASIC TRANSLATORS

[Phil Porter]

We are coding a process control program replacement using MSDOS
V6.22 and TurboPascal V7 (DOS). The compiler has been giving
us some cryptic error messages and will not compile a simple
Close(InFile) statement. Since TurboPascal is no longer
supported by Borland, we have opted to license PowerBASIC and
port the 2,000+ lines of code already written in TurboPascal over
to the PowerBASIC syntax.

Our question is this. Does anyone know of any public domain
TurboPascal to PowerBASIC translators? The translation does not
need to be flawless since our completed code will have to undergo
an exhaustive V&V process prior to use in the plant.

Any assistance will be appreciated even if it is to say that no
free translators are available. We are aware of commercially
available products but most are too pricey for our management.

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[Tom Hanlin]

No such thing exists, to the best of my knowledge. Depending on the code,
this could be a trivial project or something much more complicated. I'd
suggest posting for a consultant in the "Positions Wanted/Offered" forum.


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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

[Phil Porter]

Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. When I didn't
hear from anyone, I assumed that there was probably not a trans-
lator available in the public domain so I completed the port on
Friday using find and replace editing features as well as the old
mental lexer/parser and production rules generator. The port
only took about 6 hours from start to finish. However, I have
yet to attempt to compile the completed "work" and am awaiting
arrival of several PB/DOS copies and manuals via UPS. I'm sure
that the compiler will let me know what syntax errors I've missed
so they can be corrected. I used QBasic syntax as my model since
PB/DOS is supposed to be 99% compatible.

A useful translator could be written using Prolog by the way. I
considered doing that but decided that it would take 2 days to
complete that effort using PDC Prolog whereas the manual trans-
lation required less than a day.

Thanks again,

Phil ...

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