Method and apparatus for translating between source and target code

• US 6,728,950 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2001
• Issued: 04/27/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Davis, Alan L., Humphreys, Jonathan F., Snider, Todd M., Kanagasabai, Raj
• Primary Examiner(s): DAS, CHAMELI
• Application Number:
  US09/846,961
• Publication Number:
  US 20010018764A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,092 Days
• Field of Search: 717/136-140, 717/146, 717/144, 717/134, 703/23, 703/26
• US Class Current: 717/136
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/44 Encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/52 Binary to binary

Abstract

An interactive translation system (10) includes a front end (40), a back end (42), and a user interface (16). The front end (40) is operable to identify source elements (86) in a source file (24). The back end (42) is operable to generate a translation file having translation elements corresponding to translation of said identified source elements (86) and having an interface (16) for receiving inputs for modifying said translation.

Claims

1. A method for translating a source file for a source processing unit to a target file for a target Processing unit, the method comprising:

reading in a source instruction;

matching an opcode of a source instruction to an opcode of a target instruction by comparing the source opcode to possible target opcodes;

converting the operand of the source instruction by comparing the operand of the source instruction represented by a generic expression to the generic expression related to a target operand and

combining the target opcode and the target operand to form a translated target instruction.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the generic expression is a tree diagram representation of an operand.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching an opcode further comprises choosing a target opcode from a group of potential target opcodes by comparing the target opcode and target operand with the source opcode and source operand.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching an opcode further comprises the step of combining two or more source opcodes to a single target opcode when there is a target opcode that represents the two or more source code opcodes.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a translation machine description stores a list of source opcodes and the corresponding target opcodes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a source machine description stores a list of source instructions and a list of source operands associated with a generic expression of the source operand.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a target machine description stores a list of target instructions and a list of target operands associated with a generic expression of the target operand.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein an untranslatable source element is identified.

9. A system for translating a source instruction for a source processing unit into a target instruction for a target processing unit, the system comprising:

a translator operable to perform context-based translation including;

a translation machine description operable to store a list of source opcodes and a corresponding list of target opcodes;

a source description having a list of source opcodes and a list of source operands associated with a generic representation of the source operands and

a target description having a list of target opcodes and a list of target operands associated with a generic representation of the target operands,

wherein the translator is operable to receive a source instruction, utilize the translation machine description, source description, and target description to translate the source instruction into the target instruction.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the generic expression is a diagram or pattern representation of an operand.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein a target opcode is chosen from a group of potential target opcodes by comparing the target opcode and target operand with the source opcode and source operand.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein two or more source opcodes can be converted to a single target opcode when there is a target opcode that represents the two or more source code opcodes.

13. The system as recited in claim 9 wherein an untranslatable source instruction is identified by the translator.