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⚖️ A tool for transpiling C to Go.

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Quick Overview

The c2go project is a tool that can translate C code into Go code. It aims to make it easier to port existing C projects to the Go programming language, which can be useful for projects that need to be more portable or take advantage of Go's features.

Pros

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility: c2go can translate C code to Go, allowing developers to port their projects to a different platform without having to rewrite the entire codebase.
  • Improved Maintainability: Go code is generally more readable and easier to maintain than C, which can help with long-term project management.
  • Access to Go's Ecosystem: By translating C code to Go, developers can leverage the extensive Go ecosystem, including its rich standard library and wide range of third-party packages.
  • Performance Optimization: Go is known for its performance, which can be beneficial for projects that require high-performance computing.

Cons

  • Incomplete Translations: The c2go tool may not be able to translate all C constructs to their equivalent Go counterparts, leading to the need for manual intervention and code cleanup.
  • Lack of Idiomatic Go Code: The translated Go code may not be as idiomatic as code written natively in Go, which can make it harder to maintain and integrate with other Go projects.
  • Limited Functionality: The c2go tool may not support all the features and constructs available in the C language, which can limit its usefulness for certain types of projects.
  • Potential Performance Degradation: The translated Go code may not perform as well as the original C code, especially for highly performance-sensitive applications.

Code Examples

Here are a few examples of how c2go can be used to translate C code to Go:

// C code
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello, World!\n");
    return 0;
}

// Translated Go code
package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

In this example, the simple C program that prints "Hello, World!" is translated to an equivalent Go program.

// C code
#include <stdio.h>

int add(int a, int b) {
    return a + b;
}

int main() {
    int result = add(2, 3);
    printf("The result is: %d\n", result);
    return 0;
}

// Translated Go code
package main

import "fmt"

func add(a int, b int) int {
    return a + b
}

func main() {
    result := add(2, 3)
    fmt.Printf("The result is: %d\n", result)
}

This example demonstrates the translation of a simple C function that adds two numbers and calls it from the main function.

Getting Started

To use the c2go tool, follow these steps:

  1. Install the c2go tool:

    go get -u github.com/elliotchance/c2go

  2. Translate a C file to Go:

    c2go example.c

    This will generate a new Go file named example.go in the same directory as the original C file.

  3. Customize the generated Go code as needed:

    The c2go tool does its best to translate the C code to idiomatic Go, but you may need to make some manual adjustments to the generated code to ensure it meets your project's requirements.

  4. Build and run the Go program:

    go build example.go
./example

That's the basic workflow for using the c2go tool. Refer to the project's documentation for more advanced usage and configuration options.

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README

Build Status GitHub version Go Report Card codecov GitHub license Join the chat at https://gitter.im/c2goproject Twitter GoDoc

A tool for converting C to Go.

The goals of this project are:

  1. To create a generic tool that can convert C to Go.
  2. To be cross platform (linux and mac) and work against as many clang versions as possible (the clang AST API is not stable).
  3. To be a repeatable and predictable tool (rather than doing most of the work and you have to clean up the output to get it working.)
  4. To deliver quick and small version increments.
  5. The ultimate milestone is to be able to compile the SQLite3 source code and have it working without modification. This will be the 1.0.0 release.

Installation

c2go requires Go 1.9 or newer.

go get -u github.com/elliotchance/c2go

Usage

c2go transpile myfile.c

The c2go program processes a single C file and outputs the translated code in Go. Let's use an included example, prime.c:

#include <stdio.h>
 
int main()
{
   int n, c;
 
   printf("Enter a number\n");
   scanf("%d", &n);
 
   if ( n == 2 )
      printf("Prime number.\n");
   else
   {
       for ( c = 2 ; c <= n - 1 ; c++ )
       {
           if ( n % c == 0 )
              break;
       }
       if ( c != n )
          printf("Not prime.\n");
       else
          printf("Prime number.\n");
   }
   return 0;
}

c2go transpile prime.c
go run prime.go

Enter a number
23
Prime number.

prime.go looks like:

package main

import "unsafe"

import "github.com/elliotchance/c2go/noarch"

// ... lots of system types in Go removed for brevity.

var stdin *noarch.File
var stdout *noarch.File
var stderr *noarch.File

func main() {
	__init()
	var n int
	var c int
	noarch.Printf([]byte("Enter a number\n\x00"))
	noarch.Scanf([]byte("%d\x00"), (*[1]int)(unsafe.Pointer(&n))[:])
	if n == 2 {
		noarch.Printf([]byte("Prime number.\n\x00"))
	} else {
		for c = 2; c <= n-1; func() int {
			c += 1
			return c
		}() {
			if n%c == 0 {
				break
			}
		}
		if c != n {
			noarch.Printf([]byte("Not prime.\n\x00"))
		} else {
			noarch.Printf([]byte("Prime number.\n\x00"))
		}
	}
	return
}

func __init() {
	stdin = noarch.Stdin
	stdout = noarch.Stdout
	stderr = noarch.Stderr
}

How It Works

This is the process:

  1. The C code is preprocessed with clang. This generates a larger file (pp.c), but removes all the platform-specific directives and macros.

  2. pp.c is parsed with the clang AST and dumps it in a colourful text format that looks like this. Apart from just parsing the C and dumping an AST, the AST contains all of the resolved information that a compiler would need (such as data types). This means that the code must compile successfully under clang for the AST to also be usable.

  3. Since we have all the types in the AST it's just a matter of traversing the tree in a semi-intelligent way and producing Go. Easy, right!?

Testing

By default only unit tests are run with go test. You can also include the integration tests:

go test -tags=integration ./...

Integration tests in the form of complete C programs that can be found in the tests directory.

Integration tests work like this:

  1. Clang compiles the C to a binary as normal.
  2. c2go converts the C file to Go.
  3. The Go is built to produce another binary.
  4. Both binaries are executed and the output is compared. All C files will contain some output so the results can be verified.

Contributing

Contributing is done with pull requests. There is no help that is too small! :)

If you're looking for where to start I can suggest finding a simple C program (like the other examples) that does not successfully translate into Go.

Or, if you don't want to do that you can submit it as an issue so that it can be picked up by someone else.