MoHCA-Java: a tool for C++ to Java conversion support

As Java increases in popularity and maturity, many people find it desirable to convert legacy C++ or C programs to Java. Our hypothesis is that a tool which performs rigorous analysis on a C++ program, providing detailed output on the changes necessary, will make conversion a much more efficient and reliable process. MoHCA-Java is such a tool. It performs detailed analysis on a C++ abstract syntax tree; the parameters of the analysis can be specified and extended very quickly and easily using a rule-based language. We have found that MoHCA-Java is very useful for identifying and implementing source code changes, and that its extensibility is a very important factor, specially to adapt the tool to assist in the conversion of C++ code that makes extensive use of libraries to Java code that uses similar libraries.