DML - A Meta-language and System for the Generation of Practical and Efficient Compilers from Denotational Specifications

• Main Authors: Mikael Pettersson, Peter Fritzson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1992
• Subjects: DML
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.50.451

1 DML, the Denotational Meta Language, is a specification language and a compiler generation tool for producing practical and efficient compilers from Denotational Semantics specifications. This means that code emitted from generated compilers should be product quality, and that generated compilers should have reasonable compilation speed, and interface well with standard frontends and back-ends. To achieve this goal, the DML system contains two main contributions compared to previous work in this area: (1) a general algorithm for producing efficient quadruple code from continuation semantics of Algol-like languages, and (2) enhancements in the DML specification language with BNF rules for abstract syntax declarations and "semantic brackets" [| . |] with in-line concrete syntax and pattern matching for readable and concise semantic equations. Generated quadruple code is fed into a standard optimizing back-end to obtain high quality target code. The DML system generates efficient com.