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Attribute grammar paradigms—a high-level methodology in language implementation

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Jukka PaakkiAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), Volume 27, Issue 2

Pages 196 - 255

https://doi.org/10.1145/210376.197409

Published: 01 June 1995 Publication History

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Abstract

Attribute grammars are a formalism for specifying programming languages. They have been applied to a great number of systems automatically producing language implementations from their specifications. The systems and their specification languages can be evaluated and classified according to their level of application support, linguistic characteristics, and degree of automation.

A survey of attribute grammar-based specification languages is given. The modern advanced specification languages extend the core attribute grammar model with concepts and primitives from established programming paradigms. The main ideas behind the developed attribute grammar paradigms are discussed, and representative specification languages are presented with a common example grammar. The presentation is founded on mapping elements of attribute grammars to their counterparts in programming languages. This methodology of integrating two problem-solving disciplines together is explored with a classification of the paradigms into structured, modular, object-oriented, logic, and functional attribute grammars. The taxonomy is complemented by introducing approaches based on an implicit parallel or incremental attribute evaluation paradigm.

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Ringo NKramer LVan Wyk ESaraiva JDegueule TScott E(2023)Nanopass Attribute GrammarsProceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3623476.3623514(70-83)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623476.3623514
Chen H(2023)Function Definition Language FDL and its implementationJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/BF0294874514:4(414-421)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/BF02948745
Koppel JGuo Zde Vries ESolar-Lezama APolikarpova N(2022)Searching entangled program spacesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35476226:ICFP(23-51)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2022
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Index Terms

Attribute grammar paradigms—a high-level methodology in language implementation
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
    1. Formalisms
      1. Rewrite systems
    2. Grammars and context-free languages

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Reviews

Reviewer: Donald J. Bagert

Attribute grammars are a major formalism for specifying programming language semantics. Section 1 includes an introduction to the basic concepts, definitions, notations, and limitations of attribute grammars, along with a small example. The remainder of the paper concentrates on a classification and survey of different attribute grammar paradigms, with an example included in most cases. Section 2 investigates different organizational paradigms, which help in the management of attribute grammars: attribution paradigms, structured attribute grammars, modular attribute grammars, and object-oriented attribute grammars. Section 3 discusses different evaluation paradigms, which use special mechanisms to increase the evaluation power of attribute grammars. Logic attribute grammars, functional attribute grammars, parallel attribute evaluation, and incremental attribute evaluation are covered. A helpful feature used in the discussion of the various paradigms is the large, bordered lines that equate definitions from a specific paradigm to terms in the general attribute grammar paradigm. For instance, for object-oriented attribute grammars, Nonterminal = Class and Production = Class are displayed in this way. Although a comprehensive discussion of attribute grammars needs more than 60 pages, the author has done a good job of providing a thorough explanation of the topic within the space limitations of a journal paper, and the more than 140 references will provide any additional detail required. Therefore, I recommend this paper to those who already have a basic knowledge of programming language concepts and want to further their knowledge of semantic formalisms in this area.

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ACM Computing Surveys Volume 27, Issue 2

June 1995

154 pages

ISSN:0360-0300

EISSN:1557-7341

DOI:10.1145/210376

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Published: 01 June 1995

Published in CSUR Volume 27, Issue 2

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623476.3623514
Chen H(2023)Function Definition Language FDL and its implementationJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/BF0294874514:4(414-421)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/BF02948745
Koppel JGuo Zde Vries ESolar-Lezama APolikarpova N(2022)Searching entangled program spacesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35476226:ICFP(23-51)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3547622
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Conditional attribute grammars

Modular natural language processing using declarative attribute grammars

Lazy combinators for executable specifications of general attribute grammars

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