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Please note that if you cannot find your exact dialect listed above, we may be able to modify an existing tool to suit your needs (in fact that is how many of our tools were originally developed). We will select the closest translator to your dialect and use it as a base line. Then, we will modify the front-end of the translator to accept your dialect. Give us a call or send us a small sample of your code so we can estimate the modification costs involved in creating a translator that will work for your source code.
Our COBOL translators are Microsoft Windows source to source compilers that accepts many COBOL dialects and converts them to C, C++, CPP, C#, CS, VB, JAVA or J# , XML. The turn-key translation process requires minimal user intervention and little to no knowledge of the source language. The translator output code is in your target language, and ready to be tested with the target compiler. The comments are moved transparently from the source file to the target file. Any built-in functions for math, string manipulation and I/O in COBOL are converted to calls to external procedures (see sample translation).
The translator contains a syntax analyzer, a dialect-specific COBOL to tertiary converter, and a tertiary to target language converter. The syntax analyzer scans the input file for syntactic errors and generates a listing file of the program. Any syntactic errors are flagged with detailed English messages in the listing file. If no errors are encountered, the syntax analyzer generates an abstract syntax tree (AST), and the AST is converted to our proprietary tertiary language. This tertiary file is checked, and if no errors are detected, it is converted to your target language. Command line controls are provided to allow translation even when there are errors in the original source file. This is helpful when translating code fragments that are not complete programs.
The transformation of the AST into an intermediate tertiary language ensures the logical equivalence between the source and target languages. This proprietary tertiary language, which is common to our entire family of translators, allows correct mapping from the source language to the target language. The tertiary language is automatically converted to your target language while maintaining the logical equivalence between the output program and the input COBOL program.
The design of the translator incorporates the following features:
Our most recent pricing information for translation tools can be found here.
To the extent that you want to outsource part of your translation process, MPS can provide you with translation and verification services. Our most recent pricing information for translation and verification services can be found here. However, if you would prefer to outsource your entire translation process, the use of one of our translators by your IT consultant can save you significant time and money in relation to manual translation. IT consultants purchase a number of our tools on behalf of their clients, and we are happy to work with them to get you the best translation results possible.
Use of MPS' automated translation tools can help you save time and money and reduce error rates relative to manual translation. It also allows you to maintain complete security and control over your applications by keeping the translation process in-house. In addition, we fully guarantee our translation tools so that if, for any reason, you are not fully satisfied with the output of the tool you purchased, we will credit the full value of the purchase price towards our translation and verification services to get you the results you need.
MPS is a known and trusted provider that has has been providing legacy software translation tools and consulting since 1976. We service only those companies that have the most exacting requirements for security, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, including various U.S. government agencies, the military, all of the leading aerospace and defense contractors, and hundreds of publicly-traded technology, telecommunications, industrial and manufacturing companies (please see our extended customer list). In addition, many of our biggest clients are IT consultants who purchase our tools on behalf of their clients. For more information please refer to our web site or contact us.