HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
duneroadrunner
SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation
C++2017–2020
duneroadrunner / SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation

SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation

This project has been superseded by SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation2 (https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation2) and remains here for posterity.

3Distinct people
19Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
9GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

This project has been superseded by SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation2 (https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTranslation2) and remains here for posterity.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 7:02:50 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by month19 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2017-07-01 01:39:57 UTC to 2020-01-25 01:09:20 UTC.

01232017-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 commentsJul 20172017-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsOct 20182018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsJan 2020

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Jul 20172017-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-08-01 00:00:00 UTC202
Aug 20172017-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-09-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Sep 20172017-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-10-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Oct 20172017-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-11-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Nov 20172017-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-12-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Dec 20172017-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20182018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20182018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC303
Apr 20182018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20182018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20182018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Jul 20182018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Aug 20182018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20182018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20182018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Nov 20182018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Dec 20182018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20192019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Mar 20192019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC303
Apr 20192019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20192019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20192019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20192019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20192019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20192019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20192019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Nov 20192019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Dec 20192019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

3 sources
Thanks for noticing :) It's been quite a while since I worked on the code, but I believe that the translator intentionally left types declared as "char {star}" unmodified assuming that they were being used as strings [1] rather "regular" array buffers. I'm guessing that dealing with strings would have been a lot more work because it would require providing safe compatible replacements for all the standard C library string functions. I think you should find that array buffers of other types, like "unsigned char" or "const unsigned char", and their associated pointer iterators are translated to their corresponding macros. I'd be interested if you find otherwise. If you're interested, the relevant code for the translator is in the "safercpp" subdirectory [2]. It's not super-well commented so if you have any questions feel free to post them i
Read the rest
In Achieving Safety Incrementally with Checked C
Saw this in the translated "SaferCPlusPlus" output examples. static void string_set(char** out, const char* in) What happened there? Where are the array types? Wrong place to look? If inference can't make a definitely good decision, maybe translators should guess, conservatively. That is, if it looks like something needs an array type parameter, make it an array type parameter with subscript checking. Then run tests on the translated program and see if that works. That's what humans do on such code. Machine learning has potential here. For any array in a working program, there must be some expression of some variables that expresses the size of the array. If humans can't find that expression, the program is unmaintainable and probably has a bug. There are really 3 cases. 1. this is a pointer, and it's never subscripted or offset. Tha
Read the rest
t's a pointer to a single instance of something. 2. this is a pointer which is subscripted or offset, and we can tell from context how big the array is. 3. This is a pointer which is subscripted or offset, but auto-translation fails to figure out how big the array is supposed to be. The problem is to convert (3) into (2). I tend to think that a good metric for C code quality is how hard that is. If it's not obvious by looking how big something is supposed to be, there's probably a potential bug. [1] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTransla...
In Achieving Safety Incrementally with Checked C
> "Unknown" ranges from 49% to 76%. Yeah, this is interesting. They're saying they can't determine whether a pointer targets an array buffer or not? Perhaps they might want to take a look at the (long neglected) "C to SaferCPlusPlus" translator[1] which can do this. (It was an unexpectedly taxing undertaking though.) It converts C arrays and allocated buffers used as arrays into memory safe implementations of std::array<>s and std::vector<>s, so failure to properly identify them would generally result in output code that wouldn't compile. The examples they give of problematic code in the paper: void f(int* a) { *(int**)a = a; } and f1(((int*) 0x8f8000)); don't strike me as the kind you would often encounter in real-world code. > The syntax they use is rather clunky The output code of the "C to SaferCPlusPlus" transla
Read the rest
tor replaces the types and declarations with macros[2] that can be redefined with a compile-time directive to either use the safe C++ implementation, or revert to the original unsafe native C implementation. The argument being that using macros instead of custom syntax makes the source code more versatile. And existing C programmers already "get" macros. [1] shameless plug: https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTransla... [2] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus/blob/master...
In Achieving Safety Incrementally with Checked C

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.