Answers.Body: <p>Yes, and that is the ambition of the <a href="https://www.decoder-project.eu/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Decoder</a> project (H2020 funded in Europe). Analyzing with NLP techniques the comments in e.g. C or C++ source code (of open source projects, and perhaps their <a href="https://git-scm.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>git</code></a> logs).</p>
  <p>I even happen to be on the photo.</p>
  <p>My dream is to try similar things, in a few years, in <a href="http://refpersys.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RefPerSys</a>. You could join that project, BTW.</p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-10T19:33:25.540Z
Answers.Text: I just discovered that we are neighbors :)
Answers.UserDisplayName: LMD
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-10T19:17:25.530Z
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Basile Starynkevitch
Body: <p>I wonder if we can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to process programming code:
  Given a piece of code, can we</p>
  <ol>
  <li><strong>Translate</strong> it to human language to <em>understand</em> what it does? The input could be a function definition（normally lack of documentation) in Python and the output could be the documentation for that function.</li>
  <li><strong>Compile</strong> or translate it to another programming language? Compile Python code to C or machine code, or translate C code to Python code?</li>
  </ol>
  
Tags: <natural-language-processing><machine-translation>
Title: Can we use NLP to understand/parse/compile programming code?
UserDisplayName: LMD
ThreadText: # Can we use NLP to understand/parse/compile programming code?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-09-10)
  
  I wonder if we can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to process programming code:
  Given a piece of code, can we
  
  1. **Translate** it to human language to *understand* what it does? The input could be a function definition（normally lack of documentation) in Python and the output could be the documentation for that function.
  2. **Compile** or translate it to another programming language? Compile Python code to C or machine code, or translate C code to Python code?
  
  **Tags:** natural-language-processing, machine-translation
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-09-10. Score: 1
  
  Yes, and that is the ambition of the [Decoder](https://www.decoder-project.eu/) project (H2020 funded in Europe). Analyzing with NLP techniques the comments in e.g. C or C++ source code (of open source projects, and perhaps their [`git`](https://git-scm.com/) logs).
  
  I even happen to be on the photo.
  
  My dream is to try similar things, in a few years, in [RefPerSys](http://refpersys.org/). You could join that project, BTW.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: I just discovered that we are neighbors :)  
  
  ---
  
  