Wouldn't you like to automate your software and data work?

Get more done with existing staff by multiplying their effort	Reduce cost of software and data creation and maintenance
Increase and monitor software and data quality	Shorten software schedules
Increase profitability and competitiveness	Reduce backlogs
Increase transparency and accountability	Reduce risk of delayed delivery, cost overruns, or even project failure

You can, using XTRAN and TemplaGen!

XTRAN is a software meta-tool that marries compiler and expert system technologies to automate software and data tasks throughout the Software Development Life Cycle — manipulating a wide variety of computer languages, data, and text — using a rules language that can be learned by any senior software developer.

XTRAN is used by large and small organizations around the World to automate their assessment, transformation, generation, and translation of code, data, and text:

Translating a chip manufacturing Automated Testing system from MACRO-11 assembly code to C.	Providing PL/I code quality monitoring and automated remediation for a major consumer data vendor.
Translating data capture and command/control software for the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in the UK from Norsk Data NPL to C.	Translating parts of a submarine GPS position capture system from Pascal to C.
Cross-linking and indexing XTRAN's own User's Manual in HTML.	Translating an automatic transmission modeling system from PL/I to C.
Translating an Italian airport Air Traffic Control System from PL/M to C.	Automating forensic code analysis in support of expert witness activities.
Error-checking links and creating the site map for this Web site's HTML.	Translating parts of the City of London's traffic light control system from VAX assembly code to C.
Translating parts of an Australian AWACS system from VAX Pascal to C.	Creating a command-driven text processing utility.
Translating a Swiss parking lot control system from an ancient Pascal dialect to C++ , and finding subtle real-time bugs in the original Pascal.	Translating parts of a European "faster than real-time" air route loading simulator from PL/I to C.
Modernizing a substantial body of old Fortran code comprising an Independent Software Vendor's product.	Automating generation of code, Web, documentation, and other artifacts from repository data (TemplaGen)

"With XTRAN and TemplaGen, code and data become clay,
XTRAN's rules language creates the modeling tools,
and you are the sculptor."

— Stephen F. Heffner, author of XTRAN       

"When you first read about XTRAN's capabilities it sounds like magic.
There are numerous working examples available of its capabilities
so you can see its usefulness for yourself."

— Charlie Bess, EDS / HP Fellow (retired) in his blog,     
"Beyond the Intersection of Business and IT"     

"We have used this product because we had to convert our software
written in various languages, among those Pascal.  Migration on a new
processor board was mandatory and we also used the opportunity
to have the code written in C++ and cleaned up.

"XTRAN is a great tool to achieve such a conversion.  Steve's support
was great too.  With only 2 programmers and XTRAN, we managed the
conversion of a decade of investment in a short time."

— Bernard Lacoste, CEO of ZEAG       
(now Hub Parking Technology),       
Spreitenbach, Switzerland       

It's all about leverage

XTRAN's rules language and TemplaGen templates provide tremendous leverage in automating software, data, and text work.  Minor tasks take hours to automate, significant tasks take days, and major tasks take weeks.

Here are some illustrations involving relatively small software, data, and text automation tasks, with links to the relevant examples.  Most of these XTRAN rules are generalized and parameterized, so they can be used in many different situations.

Those marked with {LI} are also language-independent, so they are usable without change for many languages.

Software task automated	Time to create & debug rules
Tally tokens in a text file	< ½ hour
Create HTML image table from image file name list	< 1 hour
Mine Web pages for keywords	< 1 hour
Analyze straight-line code (SLC) run length by code nesting depth {LI}	1 hour
Replace COBOL arithmetic statements with COMPUTEs	1 hour
Link parent statements with ending child statements, render as HTML {LI}	1 hour
Recursive vs. iterative factorial computation	1 hour
Insert anchors into HTML	< 2 hours
Forensic analysis of function signatures {LI}	< 2 hours
Count significant word occurrences in text	< 2 hours
Sum integer DSV field for each of another field's text values	< 2 hours
Markov analysis of code statement type transitions, output as DSV {LI}	< 2 hours
Normalize vocabulary in DSV data	< 2 hours
Tally DSV Values by Field Name	< 2 hours
Analyze computer language features used {LI}	2 hours
Compute Fog Index for prose text	< 3 hours
Interactive query of code/data/text mining results	< 3 hours
Normalize tags and vocabulary in XML	< 3 hours
Colorize code based on nesting depth, render as HTML {LI}	< 3 hours
Enable sorting of DSV data	< 3 hours
Highlight expressions & operators, render as HTML {LI}	< 3 hours
Content-addressable data storage & interactive retrieval	< 3 hours
Create shell script to renumber files based on name patterns {LI}	< 3 hours
Format text items into columns	< 3 hours
Generate HTML table rows from DSV data	< 4 hours
Command-driven text processing utility	< 4 hours
Add I/O documentation to code	4 hours
Highlight file & terminal I/O, render as HTML	4 hours
Vertically align DSV data items, with options	< 5 hours
Manipulate tree dependencies	< 6 hours
Command-driven abstracting of COBOL code {LI}	7 hours
Error-check HTML links & create site map	8 hours
Analyze word phrases in text	< 9 hours
Automate artifact generation from repository data {LI} (TemplaGen)	10 hours

How can such powerful and generalized task automation be created in so little time?  Because there is so much capability already available as part of XTRAN's rules language, primarily via XTRAN's built-in meta-functions.

XTRAN comes with many existing rule sets, including those listed above, for automating a wide variety of tasks, so you can start using it right out of the box.  And, after training, you can modify existing rules or create new ones to make XTRAN do exactly what you want.

What kinds of tasks can XTRAN automate?

•  Code assessment / analysis — including ad hoc, production, and forensic analysis, from simple to very complex 
•  Code generation from repository data
•  Code transformation / re-engineering — applying transformations to existing code, from simple to very complex 
•  Code translation — including assembly code to higher languages and many other language combinations   
•  Code generation — such as compilation 
•  Data analysis and manipulation — including delimited lists, regular expressions, and a content addressable data base facility 
•  Text analysis and manipulation — documents, books, transcripts, etc. 
•  Combinations of the above 

What can you automate with XTRAN?

Via its rules language, XTRAN provides automation of virtually any software task to the greatest possible extent.   We support this claim with many .

XTRAN's capabilities include automating every aspect of every software project and process.  of areas to which XTRAN has been applied include:

• Assess your code's quality and standards adherence ; remediateit and keep it healthy through ongoing monitoring
• Reverse engineer your code's architecture from the code itself , to create or verify system documentation
• Modernize your legacy code , including impact assessment and code transformation
• Rehost your code to a new platform , including impact assessment and code transformation
• Migrate your code to a new language , including impact assessment and code translation
• Automatically generate code and documentation from repository data
• Automate forensic code, data, and text analysis — for Information Security, law enforcement, and civil litigation
• Create code visualization tools 
• Create code utilities 
• Create Web utilities 
• Automate data analysis and manipulation 
• Automate text analysis and manipulation 
• Create general utilities 
• Automate year 2000 (Y2K) Impact Analysis (preserved as an XTRAN illustration) 

How can XTRAN and TemplaGen benefit you?

The benefits of XTRAN and TemplaGen apply to any organization with responsibility for a significant amount of code and/or data.  To find out how, please review the following common benefits first:

• How XTRAN benefits all organizations
• How TemplaGen benefits all organizations

Then return here and select the organization type that best describes you:

• Computer manufacturer
• Independent software vendor (ISV)
• Software services vendor, including outsourced services
• Enterprise architecture / IT consultant
• Expert witness / forensic analyst / law enforcement
• IT department

Why XTRAN, LLC?

Whether you want to document, analyze, standardize, improve, or re-engineer your code, need to change programming languages, computer hardware, operating systems, or APIs, or analyze or manipulate data or text, our software and services can help you.  Put our 50+ years of creating sophisticated, high quality software to work for you!

Questions?  Comments?

If you have questions or comments about XTRAN, us, or this Web site, please

HP (Digital / DEC, Compaq) OpenVMS users — click !

XTRAN, LLC on social media:

Partners and Affiliations:

Member, Chapter Founder

Center for the Advancement of the Enterprise Architecture Profession — Member

Dell Consultant Network

HP User Group — Member

Partner

Partner

Registered Expert

The Global IT Architect Association — Official Blogger

PartnerWorld™ — Member

Architects Corner™ — Designated Architecture Expert / Awards Judge / Presenter

™ IMS ExpertServices™ — Designated EliteXpert

Software Partner

Member / Webinar Presenter

Registered Expert

LinkedIn ProFinder — Registered Expert

Member

Microsoft Developer Network — Member

PartnerNet — Member

Member

Partner

Registered Expert / Webinar Presenter

Firefox and Chrome users, please read!

There is a Windows DirectWrite bug that causes the Arial Black type face to render incorrectly.  If this — XTRAN — doesn't look similar to this — , then:

• If you are using Firefox, please enter "about:config" (no quotes) in Firefox's URL box, click "I'll be careful" on the warning if it appears, and set the value of "gfx.direct2d.disabled" to true.
• If you are using Chrome, please enter "chrome://flags/" (no quotes) in Chrome's URL box and enable "disable DirectWrite".