A Specification Language Based on Attribute Grammar for Compiler Construction

Abstract

Attribute grammars (AGs)[2][8] are a useful formalism for the specifications of compiler. Recently, success on compiler construction systems based on AG[4][5] shows the feasibility to use AG as the core of a compiler constructions. In this paper, a specification language AG++ supports object orientation and helps integration between compiling phases such as lexical scanning, syntactic analysis, parsing tree construction, and semantic analysis. In addition, AG++ introduce several new constructs for help with writing terse compiler specification. A prototype of AG++ specification translator—AG++/C is also presented to transform these constructs into AG primitives and generate compiler source files.