Compiler Construction -- A Declarative Approach

W. M. Waite
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACT:

Although compiler construction is complex, even for simple languages,
it is based on a number of language-independent concepts (such as "scope"
and "type") that are easy to understand.  The compilation of source text
in a particular language can be described in terms of those concepts by
identifying constructs playing specific roles.  Given such a declarative
description of a compilation, modern tools can construct a complete
compiler that is more robust and just as efficient as a hand-coded one
for the same source language.

This talk will survey current mechanisms for declarative specification
in compiler construction, and relate them to object-oriented approaches.
I will show how an integrated set of tools provides a framework for
implementing general solutions and a vocabulary for applying those
solutions to particular problems.  The framework constitutes a body
of formally represented knowledge that can be re-used not only for
constructing compilers, but also for teaching the principles of compiler
construction.

Perhaps the most interesting advantage, however, of the declarative
approach is that it makes compiler technology available to a much broader
spectrum of users.  This is important because compiler construction is
an enabling technology for domain-specific languages and generators.
Very few (if any) of our students will write conventional compilers,
but most will develop compiler-like processors -- a generator of musical
scores, a memory traffic analyzer for large scientific applications,
a generator of class web sites -- that perform some kind of analysis or
translation in pursuit of their main results.