Semantic errors - diagnosis and repair

ABSTRACT

In compiler technology, semantic error handling has too often used ad hoc techniques and terse messages of fixed content. In contrast, we present general models of diagnosis and repair of semantic errors and illustrate their use in the York Ada Workbench Compiler. The diagnostic model focuses upon the problem of selecting suitable information from which the programmer can locate and correct an error; following a brief discussion of an approach in which filters are applied to reports, and we give a more extensive account of a new approach using an interactive diagnostic interpreter. The repair model is based upon the idea of plastic nodes which are introduced into the compiler's internal representation of a program to replace normal nodes which are missing or erroneous.

REFERENCES

• 1: Paul W. Abrahams, The CIMS PL/I compiler, Proceedings of the 1979 SIGPLAN symposium on Compiler construction, p.107-116, August 06-10, 1979, Denver, Colorado, United States
• 2: Aho A V, Ullman J D Principles of Compiler Reading Mass., 1977. Design; Addison-Wesley,
• 3: Ciesinger J A Bibliography of Error Handling; SIGPLAN Notices, Vol 14, No 1, January 1979, pp 16-26.
• 4: Susan L. Graham , Charles B. Haley , William N. Joy, Practical LR error recovery, Proceedings of the 1979 SIGPLAN symposium on Compiler construction, p.168-175, August 06-10, 1979, Denver, Colorado, United States
• 5: David Gries, Error Recovery and Correction - An Introduction to the Literature, Compiler Construction, An Advanced Course, 2nd ed., p.627-638, January 1976
• 6: James J. Horning, What the Compiler Should Tell the User, Compiler Construction, An Advanced Course, 2nd ed., p.525-548, January 1976
• 7: United States Department of Defense Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language; November 1980.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.1 Formal Definitions and Theory
          Subjects: Semantics

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.5 Testing and Debugging
          Subjects: Error handling and recovery

General Terms:
Languages, Verification