METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRANSLATING GOTO-ORIENTED PROCEDURAL LANGUAGES INTO GOTO-FREE OBJECT ORIENTED LANGUAGES

A method and system for translating goto-oriented procedural languages into object oriented languages. A class structure is selected into which the source program will be transformed. The class structure is selected based upon the granularity of translation. The lowest level of granularity involves the translation of each source program statement into an executable object in the resulting object oriented program. Highest level of granularity translates the entire source program into a single object in the resultant program. The transformation program causes the construction of an output program that creates instances of each object type with parameters based upon the input source program. The parameters can specify branching logic to replace goto statements and they involve generation of executable method code to implement processing logic of the procedural source program. Intermediate levels of granularity are also possible. The resulting program can be optimized to reduce memory and load times by replacing passing of statement index values with passing of the next executable object itself. Finally, dynamic loading of objects can be implemented to provide that object instances are created only as required for execution. This optimization reduces the memory requirements and speeds processing particularly in cases where significant portions of code are not executed.