Modularity and reusability in attribute grammars

Abstract

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A Role-Based Approach towards Modular Language Engineering

“…To realise self-contained and reusable language components it is vital to decouple reusable semantics of a component and semantics interconnection. A sensible design of semantics modules (as described for attribute grammars in [35]) could achieve this separation. Role-based language composition leverages this idea-it insists on this separation by differentiating between component semantics and composition semantics.…”

Decorated Attribute Grammars: Attribute Evaluation Meets Strategic Programming

“…For example, the repmin example can be simplified using the including construct of the GAG and LIGA systems [15], which provide a shorthand for specifying copy rules. Using this construct, the copy rules in Figure 1, lines 6 and 7 could be removed and line 13 replaced by id.replace := Leaf(including Root.global-min), specifying that the value is to be copied downward from the Root node.…”

“…To extend their expressiveness for use in particular domains, and to abstract over commonly occurring patterns, basic attribute grammars have been extended in many ways, in particular supporting attribution patterns with non-local dependencies. For example, remote attribution constructs allow equations that refer to attributes of nodes arbitrarily far above or below the node for which they are defined [5,15]. Chain attributes express a dependence that is threaded in a left-to-right, depth-first fashion through a sub-tree that contains definitions of the chain value [15].…”

“…For example, remote attribution constructs allow equations that refer to attributes of nodes arbitrarily far above or below the node for which they are defined [5,15]. Chain attributes express a dependence that is threaded in a left-to-right, depth-first fashion through a sub-tree that contains definitions of the chain value [15]. Self rules provide a local copy of subtrees, which may be adapted for tree transformations [2].…”

Reliably composable language extensions

“…While these often allow modular specification of language features, and some even allow composition, these all lack any means of ensuring that composition will succeed provided by our modular analyses. There has been substantial work using attribute grammars for the modular development of languages [103,104,105,106,79], but this work is primarily aimed at helping compiler engineers re-use language specifications in designing extended languages, and not aimed at programmers looking for tools that would perform reliable composition.…”