Re: Are transpiling techniques different than compiling techniques?

I'm working for years on the Delphi to C++ translater "Delphi2Cpp",
without beeing aware, that this kind of software is called a "transpiler".


https://www.texttransformer.com/Delphi2Cpp_en.html
<https://www.texttransformer.com/Delphi2Cpp_en.html>


What might come close to a special transpiler technique are "rewrite
rules" of syntax trees. But I use a naive approach with no mysterious
transpiler theory in the background. I shortly describe the steps that
are done during conversion:


1. the Delphi source code is pre-processed according to the set conditions
2. the resulting reduced code is parsed to build a syntax tree
3. the syntax tree is pre-processed to calculate some information needed
for the output.
4. the syntax tree is output as C++ code


For the first two steps an own parser generator called "TextTransformer"
is used. The first step can be regarded as a kind of
compilation/"transpilation" of its own. An example for the third step is
the calculation of the variables that have to be passed to
sub-functions, when nested functions are unbundled. A lot of manual work
has to be done for the fourth step. Numerous special cases have to be
hard-coded there, as there is no simple deduction relationship between
the source language and the target language. Some Delphi constructs
cannot be converted at all. But C++ is more powerful than Delphi, so
that many Delphi constructs can be reconstructed or simulated in C++. A
converter the other way round would be quite poor. The power of a
language could be part of a transpiler theory.


In contrast to a compiler, which has to be fast because it is used over
and over again in the development of software, the speed of the
tranpiler does not matter: ideally, it only has to be used once to do
its job.




Detlef




Am 11.10.2021 um 15:26 schrieb Roger L Costello:
> Hi Folks,
>
> Today I learned a new word: transpiling

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