Translating simple console application

Note that this example is built upon several assumptions, namely:

• Translator is installed to C:\CodePorting.Translator_Cs2Cpp directory
• The sample C# project is located in C:\SimpleConsoleApp directory
• The output directory is C:\output

This example demonstrates how to translate a console application C# project to a C++ console application project. We’ll use pre-existing project from SimpleConsoleApp example.

SimpleConsoleApp is a console application C# project that consists of a single .cs source file SimpleConsoleApp.cs and a project file SimpleConsoleApp.csproj. This project does not depend on any other C# projects. SimpleConsoleApp project's configuration file is pre-created, its name is SimpleConsoleApp.translator.config and it is located in the project’s directory. Let us have a closer look at the configuration file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<porter>
  <import config="translator.config"/>
  
  <cmake_commands>
    <![CDATA[
      set_target_properties(${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTIES RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../bin")
    ]]>
  </cmake_commands>
  
</porter>

SimpleConsoleApp.translator.config begins with an XML declaration, which specifies that the file contains an XML document. Then goes the XML root element <porter> which is mandatory for Translator configuration XML document.

Next, the default Translator configuration file is imported using <import> element. The default configuration will assign default values to all configuration options.

Also we want Translator to add some commands to the output CMakeLists.txt. We do that by adding <cmake_commands> element to the configuration file containing raw CMake commands. The first command sets the output directory for the executable binary by setting the corresponding property on the target $.

set_target_properties(${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTIES RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../bin")

Here $ is the name of the CMake project which is equal to the name of the main CMake executable target.

Then the </cmake_commands> element is closed. Finally the XML document is finished with closing tag of the root element </porter>

With the C# project at hand and configuration file ready, we can convert the project.

In order to convert SimpleConsoleApp project we run CMD and navigate to the directory with translator binary:

>cd C:\CodePorting.Translator_Cs2Cpp\bin\code_translator

And run Translator:

>CodeTranslator.Cs2Cpp.Console.exe -c C:\SimpleConsoleApp\SimpleConsoleApp.translator.config C:\SimpleConsoleApp\SimpleConsoleApp.csproj C:\output

Translator will print some logs of the translating process to the console window and when it finishes translating, directory C:\output will contain a directory named SimpleConsoleApp.Cpp containing the generated C++ source files and CMake configuration files.

Now we want to use CMake to generate makefile/project files. Let it be a Visual Studio 2022 x86 project file. In CMD we navigate to the C:\output\SimpleConsoleApp.Cpp directory

>cd C:\output\SimpleConsoleApp.Cpp

And run CMake in configuration mode:

>CMake --G "Visual Studio 17 2022"

And now we can build the sources using either CMake or Visual Studio. Let us use CMake:

>CMake --build . --config Release

When build finishes, directory C:\output\bin\Release should contain two files: SimpleConsoleApp.Cpp.exe, which has just been built from sources, and aspose_cpp_vc140.dll, which was copied from Translator installation directory during a post-build step. When we run SimpleConsoleApp.Cpp.exe its output to the Console window should be similar to the output of the original C# application project we translated.