Algol-like Languages

Synopsis

To construct a compiler for a modern higher-level programming languagel one needs to structure the translation to a machine-like intermediate language in a way that reflects the semantics of the language. little is said about such struc­ turing in compiler texts that are intended to cover a wide variety of program­ ming languages. More is said in the Iiterature on semantics-directed compiler construction [1] but here too the viewpoint is very general (though limited to 1 languages with a finite number of syntactic types). On the other handl there is a considerable body of work using the continuation-passing transformation to structure compilers for the specific case of call-by-value languages such as SCHEME and ML [21 3]. ln this paperl we will describe a method of structuring the translation of ALGOL-like languages that is based on the functor-category semantics devel­ oped by Reynolds [4] and Oles [51 6]. An alternative approach using category theory to structure compilers is the early work of F. L. Morris [7]1 which anticipates our treatment of boolean expressionsl but does not deal with procedures. 2 Types and Syntax An ALGOL-like language is a typed lambda calculus with an unusual repertoire of primitive types. Throughout most of this paper we assume that the primi­ tive types are comm(and) int(eger)exp(ression) int(eger)acc(eptor) int(eger)var(iable) I and that the set 8 of types is the least set containing these primitive types and closed under the binary operation -.

Book details

Edition:

1997

Series:

Progress in Theoretical Computer Science

Author:

Peter O'Hearn, Robert Tennent

ISBN:

9781475738513

Related ISBNs:

9780817639372

Publisher:

Birkhäuser Boston

Pages:

N/A

Reading age:

Not specified

Includes images:

No

Date of addition:

2021-01-26

Usage restrictions:

Copyright

Copyright date:

1997

Copyright by:

N/A 

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Categories:

Computers and Internet, Mathematics and Statistics, Nonfiction, Philosophy