Article

Declarative, formal, and extensible syntax definition for aspectJ

Authors:

Martin Bravenboer,

Eelco VisserAuthors Info & Claims

OOPSLA '06: Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

Pages 209 - 228

https://doi.org/10.1145/1167473.1167491

Published: 16 October 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is attracting attention from both research and industry, as illustrated by the ever-growing popularity of AspectJ, the de facto standard AOP extension of Java. From a compiler construction perspective AspectJ is interesting as it is a typical example of compositional language, ie a language composed of a number of separate languages with different syntactical styles: in addition to plain Java, AspectJ includes a language for defining pointcuts and one for defining advices. Language composition represents a non-trivial challenge for conventional parsing techniques. First, combining several languages with different lexical syntax leads to considerable complexity in the lexical states to processed. Second, as new language features for AOP are being explored, many research proposals are concerned with further extending the AspectJ language, resulting in a need for an extensible syntax definition.This paper shows how scannerless parsing elegantly addresses the issues encountered by conventional techniques when parsing AspectJ . We present the design of a modular, extensible, and formal definition of the lexical and context-free aspects of the AspectJ syntax in the Syntax Definition Formalism SDF, which is implemented by a scannerless, generalized-LR parser (SGLR). We introduce grammar mixins as a novel application of SDF's modularity features, which allows the declarative definition of different keyword policies and combination of extensions. We illustrate the modular extensibility of our definition with syntax extensions taken from current research on aspect languages. Finally, benchmarks show the reasonable performance of scannerless generalized-LR parsing for this grammar.

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Kuramitsu KCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)A symbol-based extension of parsing expression grammars and context-sensitive packrat parsingProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136025(26-37)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136025
Matsumura TKuramitsu K(2016)A Declarative Extension of Parsing Expression Grammars for Recognizing Most Programming LanguagesJournal of Information Processing10.2197/ipsjjip.24.25624:2(256-264)Online publication date: 2016
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Index Terms

Declarative, formal, and extensible syntax definition for aspectJ
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
    2. Formal language definitions
2. Theory of computation
  1. Formal languages and automata theory

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cover image ACM Conferences

OOPSLA '06: Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

October 2006

514 pages

ISBN:1595933484

DOI:10.1145/1167473

General Chair:
Peri Tarr
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, USA
,
Program Chairs:
William R. Cook
University of Texas at Austin, USA
,
Robert Biddle
Carleton University, Canada
,
Richard P. Gabriel
Sun Microsystems Laboratories

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 41, Issue 10
Proceedings of the 2006 OOPSLA Conference
October 2006
480 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1167515
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Copyright © 2006 ACM.

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Published: 16 October 2006

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Cited By

de Souza Amorim LVisser E(2020)Multi-purpose Syntax Definition with SDF3Software Engineering and Formal Methods10.1007/978-3-030-58768-0_1(1-23)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58768-0_1
Kuramitsu KCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)A symbol-based extension of parsing expression grammars and context-sensitive packrat parsingProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136025(26-37)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136025
Matsumura TKuramitsu K(2016)A Declarative Extension of Parsing Expression Grammars for Recognizing Most Programming LanguagesJournal of Information Processing10.2197/ipsjjip.24.25624:2(256-264)Online publication date: 2016
https://doi.org/10.2197/ipsjjip.24.256
Kuramitsu KVisser EMurphy-Hill ELopes C(2016)Nez: practical open grammar languageProceedings of the 2016 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/2986012.2986019(29-42)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2986012.2986019
Lumpe M(2015)Lexical Parsing Expression Recognition SchemataProceedings of the 2015 24th Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC)10.1109/ASWEC.2015.27(165-174)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ASWEC.2015.27
Afroozeh AIzmaylova A(2015)Faster, Practical GLL ParsingCompiler Construction10.1007/978-3-662-46663-6_5(89-108)Online publication date: 2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46663-6_5
de Jonge MKats LVisser ESöderberg E(2012)Natural and Flexible Error Recovery for Generated Modular Language EnvironmentsACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/2400676.240067834:4(1-50)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2012
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Kamina TAotani TMasuhara HBorba PChiba S(2011)EventCJProceedings of the tenth international conference on Aspect-oriented software development10.1145/1960275.1960305(253-264)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1960275.1960305
Casey AHendren LBorba PChiba S(2011)MetaLexerProceedings of the tenth international conference on Aspect-oriented software development10.1145/1960275.1960279(7-18)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1960275.1960279
Kats LVisser EWachsmuth G(2010)Pure and declarative syntax definitionACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1932682.186953545:10(918-932)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
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