View source for Attribute grammar

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== Introduction ==

Especially for functional programmers (with Haskell examples) -- see
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
* 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 [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Ehc/WebHome project page]
* and on a separate [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/HUT/AttributeGrammarSystem 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.

* [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]
* 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 ==

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) [[monad]]s,
* (fan-out operation of) [[arrow]]s.

== Portals or other rich resources ==

* [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 ==

Utrecht University's [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/HUT/AttributeGrammarSystem Attribute Grammar System] tools include also an attribute grammar compiler, UUAGC. The concept of attribute grammar was used in their [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Ehc/WebHome 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 [http://haskell.org/communities/06-2006/html/report.html#happy-ag Attribute Grammar Support for Happy] in the Haskell Communities and Activities Report (10th edititon, June 2006)

== Related concepts ==

* [[Circular programming]]
* Catamorphism, see [[Category theory]]

[[Category:Theoretical foundations]]
[[Category:Compiler tools]]