Canonical Backs New Project to Translate Large C Codebases Into Safe Rust
Summary
Canonical is funding a three-year research project to automate translating large C codebases into safe Rust. The collaboration with the University of Bristol aims to build a platform capable of translating hundreds of thousands of lines of C into reliable Rust, addressing legacy code and safety challenges. The approach blends machine learning with traditional program analysis in a neurosymbolic framework, and real-world case studies will use AppArmor and snap-confine, without rewriting them in Rust.