Code generation for Palm OS 4

Abstract

Code generation for Palm OS 4 is based on the idea of making application development for personal digital assistants (PDAs) easier. Instead of having to use the programming language compatible with the operating system of the PDA, the user may develop an application in a perhaps easier language; Python, run the application through a code generator and obtain the files necessary to compile . The project has been limited to a PDA from Palm, Tungsten W, which runs Palm OS 4.1.1.

The program developed during the master thesis takes a Python application as input, generates similar C code and provides the user with the files necessary to compile. The development process has taken a starting point in a food application and the solutions in the code generator are often linked to this application.

Today the code generator has solutions for only parts of the Python language. These solutions involve for instance the most commonly used graphical user interface components, such as labels, buttons, and text fields, the most common Python structures, such as if statements, functions, for loops, and while loops, solutions for most mathematical structures, rewritten solutions for built-in Python functions, and a partly solution for writing to file and reading from file.