Difference between revisions of "Attribute grammar"

Latest revision as of 07:06, 26 January 2018

Introduction

Especially for functional programmers (with Haskell examples) -- see Wouter Swierstra: Why Attribute Grammars Matter (published in The Monad.Reader, Issue Four). And also very deep connections with

catamorphisms, category theory
attribute grammars

are described there. And there are links from that article to other materials providing deep insights in these powerful theories: attribute grammar tools and articles of the Essential Haskell Compiler project.

It is no wonder that it is exactly a compiler project homepage that provides good circular programming and attribute grammar tutorials

both on its project page
and on a separate attribute grammar page:

the reason may be that a compiler project is complex enough to require good separation of concerns, modularity, reuse (goals of Aspect Oriented Programming, too), and attribute grammars are powerful tools to achieve these goals.

Wikipedia article
An Attribute Grammar tutorial by Swiestra Attribute grammars – A short tutorial
Also Happy contains AG-related capabilities, see Chapter 4. Attribute Grammars
Attribute Grammars were originally proposed be Donald E. Knuth in Semantics of Context-Free Languages.
Knuth describes the origin of the ideas behind Attribute Grammars in The Genesis of Attribute Grammars. Furthermore he gives a rich bibliography and some error corrections for some of his papers there.

Separation of concerns

Both Swiestra's article (mentioned above) and the Essential Haskell Compiler Project tool (mentioned below) remarks the connection of attribute grammars to the topic of separation of concerns, a goal of aspect orinted programming. This goal can be achieved by multiple ways in functional programming, see the concepts monad and arrow). Swiestra'a article mentions analogies between

attribute grammars,
(Reader, Writer, State) monads,
(fan-out operation of) arrows.

Portals or other rich resources

Attribute Grammar page of Utrecht Univesity
Description of Attibute Grammar aspects in the Happy parser generator system for Haskell
The FNC-2 Attribute Grammar System
Resources for Attribute Grammar research by Didier Parigot (INRIA)
Team OSCAR at INRIA is stopped since 1999 but the following page contains some older publications: Former Team OSCAR Home Page

Tools

Utrecht University's Attribute Grammar System tools include also an attribute grammar compiler, UUAGC. The concept of attribute grammar was used in their Essential Haskell Compiler project, which gives us not only a working programming language, but also a good didactical material about using attribute grammars, e.g. in writing compilers.

Albeits these materials are self-contained, they reveal that the theory of attribute grammars is related to other concepts (circular programming, catamorphism).

Robert Dockins has reported Attribute Grammar Support for Happy in the Haskell Communities and Activities Report (10th edititon, June 2006)

Related concepts

Circular programming
Catamorphism, see Category theory

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 Especially for functional programmers (with Haskell examples) -- see
-Wouter Swierstra: [http://www.haskell.org/tmrwiki/WhyAttributeGrammarsMatter Why Attribute Grammars Matter] (published in [http://www.haskell.org/tmrwiki/IssueFour The Monad.Reader, Issue Four]).
+Wouter Swierstra: [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/The_Monad.Reader/Issue4/Why_Attribute_Grammars_Matter Why Attribute Grammars Matter] (published in [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/The_Monad.Reader/Issue4 The Monad.Reader, Issue Four]).
 And also very deep connections with
-* catamorhisms, category theory
+* catamorphisms, category theory
 * attribute grammars
 are described there.
@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_grammar Wikipedia article]
+* An Attribute Grammar tutorial by Swiestra [http://foswiki.cs.uu.nl/foswiki/pub/Swierstra/ResearchTalks/AgTutorial-org.pdf Attribute grammars – A short tutorial]
-* [http://www-rocq.inria.fr/oscar/www/fnc2/manual/node32.html A Tutorial Introduction to Attribute Grammars], contained in [http://www-rocq.inria.fr/oscar/www/fnc2/manual/manual.html The FNC-2 System
-User's Guide and Reference Manual], written by Martin JOURDAN and Didier PARIGOT
 * Also [http://www.haskell.org/happy/ Happy] contains AG-related capabilities, see [http://www.haskell.org/happy/doc/html/sec-AttributeGrammar.html Chapter 4. Attribute Grammars]
+* Attribute Grammars were originally proposed be Donald E. Knuth in [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.455.1434&rep=rep1&type=pdf Semantics of Context-Free Languages].
+* Knuth describes the origin of the ideas behind Attribute Grammars in [http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~sk/cs325/gag.pdf The Genesis of Attribute Grammars]. Furthermore he gives a rich bibliography and some error corrections for some of his papers there.
 == Separation of concerns ==
@@ Line 30: / Line 31: @@
 == Portals or other rich resources ==
-[http://www-rocq.inria.fr/oscar/www/fnc2/attribute-grammar-people.html Attribute Grammars Home Page]
+* [http://foswiki.cs.uu.nl/foswiki/HUT/AttributeGrammarSystem Attribute Grammar page of Utrecht Univesity]
+* [https://www.haskell.org/happy/doc/html/sec-AtrributeGrammarsInHappy.html Description of Attibute Grammar aspects in the Happy parser generator system for Haskell]
+* [http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Didier.Parigot/www/fnc2/index.html The FNC-2 Attribute Grammar System]
+* [http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Didier.Parigot/www/fnc2/AGtexte.html Resources for Attribute Grammar research by Didier Parigot (INRIA)]
+* Team OSCAR at INRIA is stopped since 1999 but the following page contains some older publications: [https://www.inria.fr/en/teams/oscar Former Team OSCAR Home Page]
 == Tools ==