Algol-like Languages (Progress in Theoretical Computer Science)

O'Hearn, Peter; Tennent, Robert

ISBN 10: 1475738536 / ISBN 13: 9781475738537

Published by Birkhäuser, 2013

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9781475738537

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Algol-like Languages (Progress in Theoretical Computer Science)
• Publisher: Birkhäuser
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1475738536
• ISBN 13: 9781475738537
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

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 -.

From the Back Cover

In recent years there has been a remarkable convergence of interest in programming languages based on Algol 60. Researchers interested in the theory of procedural and object-oriented languages discovered that Algol 60 shows how to add procedures and object classes to simple imperative languages in a general and clean way.Volume 1 contains an Introduction, historical and foundational material, and works on language design; all of this material should be accessible to beginning graduate students in programming languages and theoretical computer science.