Article

A two-dimensional separation of concerns for compiler construction

Authors:

Marjan MernikAuthors Info & Claims

SAC '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Applied computing

Pages 1365 - 1369

https://doi.org/10.1145/1066677.1066985

Published: 13 March 2005 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

During language evolution, compiler construction is usually performed along two dimensions: defining new abstract syntax tree (AST) classes, or adding new operations. In order to facilitate such changes, two software design patterns (i.e., the inheritance pattern and the visitor pattern) are widely used to help modularize the language constructs. However, as each design pattern is only suitable for one dimension of extension, neither of these two patterns can independently fulfill the evolution needs during the compiler construction process. In this paper, we analyze two dimensions of concerns in compiler construction and develop a paradigm allowing compiler evolution across these two dimensions using both object-orientation and aspect-orientation. Moreover, this approach provides an ability to perform pattern transformation based on pluggable aspects. A simple implementation of an expression language and its possible extension is demonstrated using Java and AspectJ.

References

[1]

R. Weatherley. TreeCC: An Aspect-Oriented Approach to Writing Compilers. http://www.southern-storm.com.au/treecc.html.]]

Google Scholar

[2]

E. Gamma, R. Helm, R. Johnson, J. Vlissides. Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley, 1995.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[3]

G. Kiczales, J. Lamping, A. Mendhekar, C. Maeda, C. Lopes, J. Loingtier, and J. Irwin. Aspect-Oriented Programming. In Proc. 11th European Conf. Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP), Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1241, 1997, pp. 220--242.]]

Google Scholar

[4]

J. Hannemann and G. Kiczales. Design Pattern Implementation in Java and AspectJ. In Proc. Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, and Applications (OOPSLA), 2002, pp. 161--173.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[5]

O. Hachani and D. Bardou. Using Aspect-Oriented Programming for Design Patterns Implementation. In Proc. Workshop Reuse in Object-Oriented Information Systems Design, 2002.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

P. Tarr, H. Ossher, W. Harrison, and S. Sutton. N Degrees of Separation: Multi-Dimensional Separation of Concerns. In Proc. Int. Conf. Software Engineering (ICSE), 1999, pp. 107--119.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[7]

G. Kiczales, E. Hilsdale, J. Hugunin, M. Kersten, J. Palm, and W. G. Griswold. An Overview of AspectJ. In Proc. 15th European Conf. on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP), Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2072, 2001, pp. 327--355.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

B. R. Bryant and B.-S. Lee. Two-Level Grammar as an Object-Oriented Requirements Specification Language. In Proc. 35th Hawaii Int. Conf. System Sciences (HICSS), 2002.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

J. E. Hopcroft, R. Motwani, and J. D. Ullman. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation. Addison-Wesley, 2001.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[10]

X. Wu, B. R. Bryant, and M. Mernik. Object-Oriented Pattern-Based Language Implementation. Technical Report, http://www.cis.uab.edu/wuxi/paper/acta.pdf]]

Google Scholar

[11]

I. Baxter, C. Pidgeon, and M. Mehlich. DMS: Program Transformation for Practical Scalable Software Evolution. In Proc. Int. Conf. Software Engineering (ICSE), 2004, pp. 625--634.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[12]

O. de Moor, S. Peyton-Jones, and E. Van Wyk. Aspect-oriented Compilers. In Proc. Generative and Component-Based Software Engineering (GCSE), Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1799, 2000, pp. 121--133]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Blume MChae W(2010)Building a Family of CompilersApplied Software Product Line Engineering10.1201/9781420068429-c9(201-229)Online publication date: 28-Apr-2010
https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420068429-c9
Kollar JVaclavik PWassermann L(2009)Data-driven executable language model2009 International Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Technology10.1109/IMCSIT.2009.5352766(667-674)Online publication date: Oct-2009
https://doi.org/10.1109/IMCSIT.2009.5352766
Chae WBlume M(2008)Building a Family of CompilersProceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference10.1109/SPLC.2008.28(307-316)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SPLC.2008.28
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A two-dimensional separation of concerns for compiler construction
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers

Recommendations

Untangling crosscutting concerns in domain-specific languages with domain-specific join points
DSAL '09: Proceedings of the 4th workshop on Domain-specific aspect languages

Like programs written in general-purpose languages, programs written in DSLs may also suffer from tangling and scattering in the presence of domain-specific crosscutting concerns. This paper presents an architecture that supports aspect-oriented ...
Separation of concerns in compiler development using aspect-orientation
SAC '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing

A major difficulty in compiler development regards the proper modularization of concerns among the various compiler phases. The traditional object-oriented development paradigm has difficulty in providing an optimal solution towards modularizing the ...
Pattern transformation for two-dimensional separation of concerns
OOPSLA '05: Companion to the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications

Design patterns are applied in software development to decouple individual concerns, so that a change in a design decision is isolated to one location of the code base. However, multi-dimensional concerns exist in software development and some concerns ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

SAC '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Applied computing

March 2005

1814 pages

ISBN:1581139640

DOI:10.1145/1066677

Conference Chair:
Hisham M. Haddad
Kennesaw State University
,
Editor:
Lorie M. Liebrock
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM
,
Program Chairs:
Andrea Omicini
Alma Mater Studiorum, Universita di Bologna, Italy
,
Roger L. Wainwright
Univerity of Tulsa, OK

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 March 2005

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

SAC05

Sponsor:

SIGAPP

SAC05: The 2005 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

March 13 - 17, 2005

New Mexico, Santa Fe

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,650 of 6,669 submissions, 25%

Upcoming Conference

SAC '25

Sponsor:
sigapp

The 40th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing

March 31 - April 4, 2025

Catania , Italy

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

8
Total Citations
View Citations
232
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)2
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 06 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Blume MChae W(2010)Building a Family of CompilersApplied Software Product Line Engineering10.1201/9781420068429-c9(201-229)Online publication date: 28-Apr-2010
https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420068429-c9
Kollar JVaclavik PWassermann L(2009)Data-driven executable language model2009 International Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Technology10.1109/IMCSIT.2009.5352766(667-674)Online publication date: Oct-2009
https://doi.org/10.1109/IMCSIT.2009.5352766
Chae WBlume M(2008)Building a Family of CompilersProceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference10.1109/SPLC.2008.28(307-316)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SPLC.2008.28
Wu XBryant BGray JRoychoudhury SMernik MHaddad H(2006)Separation of concerns in compiler development using aspect-orientationProceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing10.1145/1141277.1141646(1585-1590)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1141277.1141646
Wu XBryant BGray JMernik M(2005)Applying object-orientation and aspect-orientation in teaching domain-specific language implementationJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/1089053.108910321:2(335-340)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1089053.1089103
Wu XJohnson RGabriel R(2005)Pattern transformation for two-dimensional separation of concernsCompanion to the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications10.1145/1094855.1094943(218-219)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1094855.1094943
Wu XBryant BGray JMernik M(2005)Pattern transformation for two-dimensional separation of concernsProceedings of the 2005 workshop on Modeling and analysis of concerns in software10.1145/1083125.1083133(1-5)Online publication date: 15-May-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1083125.1083133
Wu XBryant BGray JMernik M(2005)Pattern transformation for two-dimensional separation of concernsACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes10.1145/1082983.108313330:4(1-5)Online publication date: 15-May-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1082983.1083133

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Untangling crosscutting concerns in domain-specific languages with domain-specific join points

Separation of concerns in compiler development using aspect-orientation

Pattern transformation for two-dimensional separation of concerns

Comments

Information

Published In

Sponsors

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Conference

Acceptance Rates

Upcoming Conference

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

eReader

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations