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Automatic error recovery for LR parsers

Authors:

M. Dennis Mickunas,

John A. ModryAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 21, Issue 6

Pages 459 - 465

https://doi.org/10.1145/359511.359519

Published: 01 June 1978 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper we present a scheme for detecting and recovering from syntax errors in programs. The scheme, which is based on LR parsing, is driven by information which is directly and automatically obtainable from the information that is already present in an LR parser. The approach, which is patterned after that of Levy and Graham and Rhodes, appears to provide error recovery which is both simple and powerful.

References

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Aho, A.V., and Johnson, S.C. LR parsing. Computing Surveys 6, 2 (June 1974), 99-124.

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Aho, A.V., and Ullman, .I.D. The Theory of Parsing Translation and Compiling, Vol. 1: Parsing. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972.

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DeRemer, F.L. Simple LR(k) Grammars. Comm. ACM 14, 7 (July 1971), 453--460.

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Graham, S.L., and Rhodes, S.P. Practical syntactic error recovery in compilers. Conf Rec. ACM Symp. on the Principles of Programming Languages, Boston, Mass., Oct. 1973, pp. 53-58.

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Graham, S.L., and Rhodes, S.P. Practical syntactic error recovery. Comm. ACM 18, (Nov. 1975), 639-650.

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Irons, E.T. An error-correcting parse algorithm. Comm. A CM 6, 11 (Nov. 1963), 660-673.

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James, L.R. A syntax directed error recovery method. Master's Th., Tech. Rep. CSRG-13, Comptr. Syst. Res. Group, U. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, May 1972.

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Joliat, M.L. On the reduced matrix representation of LR(k) parser tables. Ph.D. Th. Tech. Rep. CSRG-28, Comptr. Syst. Res. Group, U. of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, Oct. 1973.

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Knuth, D.E. On the translation of languages from left to right. Inform. and Control 8 (1965), 607-639.

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LaFrance, J.E. Syntax-directed error recovery for compilers. Ph.D. Th. ILLIAC IV Doc. No. 249, Dept. Comptr. Sci., U. of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., 1971.

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Leinius, R. Error detection and recovery for syntax directed compiler systems. Ph.D. Th., Comptr. Sci. Dept., U. of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., 1970.

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Levy, J.P. Automatic correction of syntax errors in programming languages. Ph.D. Th., Tech. Rep. TR71-116, Comptr. Sci. Dept., Cornell U., Ithaca, N.Y., 1971.

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Modry,I.A. Syntactic error recovery for LR parsers. Master's Th. UIUCDCS-R-76-388, Dept. Comptr. Sci., U. of Illinois, Urbana, I11., 1976.

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Partridge, D. Heuristic methods in the analysis of program statements. Ph.D. Th., Dept. of Comptng. and Control, U. of London, London, England, Aug. 1972.

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Rhodes S.P. Practical syntactic error recovery for programming languages. Ph.D. Th., Tech. Rep. No. 15, Comptr. Sci. Dept., U. of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 1973.

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Szymanski, T.G., and Williams, J.H. Non-canonical parsing. Proc. 14th Annual Symp. on Switching and Automata Theory, Oct. 1973, pp. 122-129.

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Tindall, M.H. An Interactive Compile-Time Diagnostic System, Ph.D. Thesis, UIUCDCS-R-75-748, Dept. Comptr. Sci., U. of Illinois, Urbana, IU., Oct. 1975.

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Cited By

Corchuelo RPérez, JRuiz AToro M(2002)Repairing syntax errors in LR parsersACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/586088.58609224:6(698-710)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/586088.586092
Shishibori MLee SOono MAoe J(2002)Improvement of the LR parsing table and its application to grammatical error correctionInformation Sciences: an International Journal10.1016/S0020-0255(02)00272-4148:1-4(11-26)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/S0020-0255%2802%2900272-4
Shishibori MAndo KFuketa MJun-ichi Aoe (1998)Automatic error recovery in the natural language interfaceSMC'98 Conference Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Cat. No.98CH36218)10.1109/ICSMC.1998.728071(1353-1358)Online publication date: 1998
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSMC.1998.728071
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Automatic error recovery for LR parsers
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Parsers
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program reasoning
      1. Parsing

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Published In

cover image Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM Volume 21, Issue 6

June 1978

75 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/359511

Editor:
Robert L. Ashenhurst
The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1978 ACM.

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]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 1978

Published in CACM Volume 21, Issue 6

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Cited By

Corchuelo RPérez, JRuiz AToro M(2002)Repairing syntax errors in LR parsersACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/586088.58609224:6(698-710)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/586088.586092
Shishibori MLee SOono MAoe J(2002)Improvement of the LR parsing table and its application to grammatical error correctionInformation Sciences: an International Journal10.1016/S0020-0255(02)00272-4148:1-4(11-26)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/S0020-0255%2802%2900272-4
Shishibori MAndo KFuketa MJun-ichi Aoe (1998)Automatic error recovery in the natural language interfaceSMC'98 Conference Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Cat. No.98CH36218)10.1109/ICSMC.1998.728071(1353-1358)Online publication date: 1998
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSMC.1998.728071
Degano PPriami C(1998)LR techniques for handling syntax errorsComputer Languages10.1016/S0096-0551(97)00016-724:2(73-98)Online publication date: 1-Jul-1998
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/S0096-0551%2897%2900016-7
Degano PPriami C(1995)Comparison of syntactic error handling in LR parsersSoftware—Practice & Experience10.1002/spe.438025060625:6(657-679)Online publication date: 1-Jun-1995
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/spe.4380250606
van den Bosch P(1992)A bibliography on syntax error handling in context free languagesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/131080.13109027:4(77-86)Online publication date: 1-Apr-1992
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/131080.131090
Cohen JHickey T(1987)Parsing and compiling using PrologACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/22719.229469:2(125-163)Online publication date: 20-Mar-1987
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/22719.22946
Burke MFisher G(1987)A practical method for LR and LL syntactic error diagnosis and recoveryACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/22719.227209:2(164-197)Online publication date: 20-Mar-1987
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/22719.22720
Boullier PJourdan M(1987)A new error repair and recovery scheme for lexical and syntactic analysisScience of Computer Programming10.1016/0167-6423(87)90010-49:3(271-286)Online publication date: 1-Dec-1987
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/0167-6423%2887%2990010-4
Hammomd KRayward-Smith V(1984)A survey of syntactic error recovery and repairComputer Languages10.1016/0096-0551(84)90012-29:1(51-67)Online publication date: 29-Aug-1984
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/0096-0551%2884%2990012-2
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