Alchemy translates C/C++ code into Flash code

The beta version of Adobe's Alchemy compiler translates C and C++ programs into ActionScript 3.0. This byte code can in turn be executed by Adobe's Flash Player and AIR. This is a research project, aimed at providing operating-system independent C and C++ libraries for web applications. Adobe quotes in particular audio/video transcoding, XML parsing, and cryptography as areas of application. However, it isn't Adobe's intention that complete Flash applications should ever be written entirely in C or C++. Adobe isn't promising that Alchemy will ever go beyond beta phase.

Versions for Mac OS X, Cygwin on Windows and Linux are ready to download from the download page. Adobe presented the project, then called FlaCC, for the first time at Max2007. It uses tools from the open source Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) project.

(trk)