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Incremental attribute evaluation with side-effects

LU-CS-TR:88-37

G. Hedin

Also published in: Compiler Compilers and High Speed Compilation (2nd CCHSC Workshop), Berlin, GDR, , volume 371 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 175-189, 1988.

Abstract

Recent work has shown that incremental attribute evaluators can be derived from attribute grammars. The static semantics of typed object-oriented langagues is, however, cumbersome to express in standard attribute grammars and the derived incremental evaluators are not efficient enough. This paper proposes solving these problems by augmenting the attribute grammar formalism with operational constraints which allow side-effects during evaluation, yet retain the declarative nature of attribute grammars. A general symbol table organization is described which can handle the complex visibility rules of object-oriented langauges. Efficient incremental updating is done via the operational constraints. An object-oriented grammar notation together with a demand attribute mechanism makes it possible to keep the constumption of storage low.