LINGUIST-86: Yet another translator writing system based on attribute grammars

ABSTRACT

LINGUIST-86 is a commercially-developed translator-writing-system based on attribute grammars [K]. From an input attribute grammar it generates a set of high-level language source modules that form an alternating-pass attribute evaluator [JW]. LINGUIST-86 generates attribute evaluators efficient enough to run on a microcomputer at speeds competitive with other translators on the system. The Attributed Program Tree is kept on secondary storage rather than in randomly-accessed memory, thus allowing non-trivial inputs to be evaluated on a microcomputer system. LINGUIST-86 also applies an optimization called static subsumption that eliminates many copy rules from the generated evaluators. LINGUIST-86 is itself written as an 1800 line attribute grammar and is self-generating.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Translator writing systems and compiler generators

Additional Classification:
  F. Theory of Computation
  F.4 MATHEMATICAL LOGIC AND FORMAL LANGUAGES
      F.4.2 Grammars and Other Rewriting Systems

General Terms:
Languages