Translation of some projects from one language to another is not only about source code changes, but also about the environment, in which we execute that project. CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library does implement such environment over JCL (Java class library), keeping logic and structure of .NET Framework class library, that makes a translated project feel self at home, hiding it from Java platform implementation.
JCL (Java class library) does differ from .NET class library in common design, exceptions handling and logic. So, if we decide to translate our code from C# to Java, it would be unsafe just to replace the names of classes and functions. There could be a solution to generate wrapping code, that would reproduce .NET Framework class library logic. But, this way the resulting Java code would significantly differ from the original C# code, which is not what we expect – we want a translator to keep the original program structure. Here we are coming to the necessity to implement a Java replacement of .NET framework class library.
Let us begin with something simple :
using System;
class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello, Example!");
}
}
We have here a class from .NET Framework class library – System.Console.
How would look the translated Java code?
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Console;
class Program
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Console.writeLine("Hello, Example!");
}
}
As you may see, the translator does replace the reference from C# System.Console class to Java com.codeporting.ms.System.Console class, implemented in the CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library.
Well, now let us look at another example :
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
PrintList(new List<string> { "Hello, list!", "I have a list for you to print!" });
}
public static void PrintList(List<string> list)
{
foreach(var item in list) Console.WriteLine(item);
}
}
Translated Java code would be this :
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.IGenericEnumerable;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.List;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Console;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.IDisposable;
import java.util.Iterator;
class Program
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
List<String> tmp = new List<String>();
tmp.addItem("Hello, list!");
tmp.addItem("I have a list for you to print!");
printList(tmp);
}
public static void printList(IGenericEnumerable<String> list)
{
//Foreach to while statement conversion
Iterator<String> variable1 = list.iterator();
try
{
while (variable1.hasNext())
{
String item = variable1.next();
Console.writeLine(item);
}
}
finally
{
if (variable1 != null)
{
((IDisposable)variable1).dispose();
}
}
}
}
Here we see one more benefit from the use of CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library – we keep relations between C# abstractions. System.Collections.Generic.List does implement IEnumerable interface, which makes us able to iterate through it using foreach loop. Java has java.lang.Iterable interface, and it does look similar to IEnumerable, but they have small differences in design, that may become deciding for a large project.
Though we have a nice library to use, a project we translate does need to be accessible and comprehensible by clients, and they may prefer to use JCL classes. It would be good to hide from the outer world that we use CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library. And, here we have another interesting CodePorting.Translator feature : ApiChange. What does this feature do? It does hide methods that use CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library, creating proxy methods that use JCL classes. Let us look at the example :
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
namespace Newspaper
{
public class Article
{
public DateTime Published { get; set; }
public string Content { get; set; }
}
public class Archive
{
List<Article> articles = new List<Article>();
public void AddArticle(Article article)
{
articles.Add(article);
}
public IEnumerable<Article> GetArticlesForPeriod(DateTime start, DateTime end)
{
if(start > end || start > DateTime.Now)
{
return new Article[0];
}
return articles.Where(article => article.Published >= start && article.Published <= end);
}
}
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
var archive = new Archive();
archive.AddArticle(
new Article() {
Published = new DateTime(2012, 12, 20), Content = "End of the world comes tomorrow!" });
archive.AddArticle(
new Article() {
Published = new DateTime(2012, 12, 22), Content = "It was a huge joke..." });
var articles = archive.GetArticlesForPeriod(
new DateTime(2000, 1, 1),
new DateTime(2012, 12, 21));
foreach(var article in articles)
{
Console.WriteLine(article.Content);
}
}
}
}
You may see here a simple class Archive that stores some articles and provides access to them, applying a filter by the date at which the article was published.
Class System.DateTime is a part of the .NET Framework class library, and, though we may use it in our project, we would like to hide it from the outer world :
Article.java
package Newspaper;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.DateTime;
import java.util.Date;
public class Article
{
private DateTime auto_Published = new DateTime();
final DateTime getPublishedInternal() { return auto_Published.Clone(); }
public final Date getPublished() {
return DateTime.toJava(getPublishedInternal());
}
final void setPublishedInternal(DateTime value) { auto_Published = value.Clone(); }
public final void setPublished(Date value) {
setPublishedInternal(DateTime.fromJava(value));
}
private String auto_Content;
public final String getContent() { return auto_Content; }
public final void setContent(String value) { auto_Content = value; }
}
Archive.java
package Newspaper;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.IGenericEnumerable;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.List;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.DateTime;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Func;
import java.util.Date;
public class Archive
{
private Archive[] Archive_this = {this};
private List<Article> articles = new List<Article>();
public final void addArticle(Article article)
{
articles.addItem(article);
}
final IGenericEnumerable<Article> getArticlesForPeriodInternal(DateTime start, DateTime end)
{
if(DateTime.op_GreaterThan(start, end) || DateTime.op_GreaterThan(start, DateTime.getNow()))
{
return com.codeporting.ms.System.Array.<Article>toGenericList(new Article[0]);
}
return articles.where(new Func<Article,Boolean>() {
public String getDelegateId() {
return System.identityHashCode(Archive_this[0]) + "-89480671";
}
public Boolean invoke(Newspaper.Article article) {
return DateTime.op_GreaterThanOrEqual(article.getPublishedInternal(), start)
&& DateTime.op_LessThanOrEqual(article.getPublishedInternal(), end);
}
});
}
public final java.lang.Iterable<Article> getArticlesForPeriod(Date start, Date end)
{
IGenericEnumerable<Article> temp=getArticlesForPeriodInternal(
DateTime.fromJava(start),
DateTime.fromJava(end));
java.util.ArrayList<Article> temp_java=new java.util.ArrayList<Article>();
{
com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.IGenericEnumerator<Article> temp_iterator=temp.iterator();
while(temp_iterator.hasNext())
{
Article element=temp_iterator.next();
temp_java.add(element);
}
}
return temp_java;
}
}
Program.java
package Newspaper;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Collections.Generic.IGenericEnumerable;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.Console;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.DateTime;
import com.codeporting.ms.System.IDisposable;
import java.util.Iterator;
public class Program
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Archive archive = new Archive();
Article tmp = new Article();
tmp.setPublishedInternal(new DateTime(2012, 12, 20));
tmp.setContent("End of the world comes tomorrow!" ) ;
archive.addArticle(tmp);
Article tmp_1 = new Article();
tmp_1.setPublishedInternal(new DateTime(2012, 12, 22));
tmp_1.setContent("It was a huge joke..." ) ;
archive.addArticle(tmp_1);
IGenericEnumerable<Article> articles = archive.getArticlesForPeriodInternal(
new DateTime(2000, 1, 1),
new DateTime(2012, 12, 21));
//Foreach to while statement conversion
Iterator<Article> variable1 = articles.iterator();
try
{
while (variable1.hasNext())
{
Article article = variable1.next();
Console.writeLine(article.getContent());
}
}
finally
{
if (variable1 != null)
{
((IDisposable)variable1).dispose();
}
}
}
}
Translated to Java code does not provide access to CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library through public API, and the outer Java world may interact with our Archive class, using public proxy methods.
CodePorting.Translator Java Class Library does provide an abstraction layer and control over JCL, which distracts us from implementation details and allows us to think about problems we solve.
It also helps to keep the structure of the original code, increasing comprehension and transparency of the translation result.