Generating an action notation environment from Montages descriptions

Abstract

In the present paper, a methodology is presented which enables the implementation of the Action Notation formalism based on a formal and modular speci cation. As a result, an interpreter and debugger is automatically generated which allows the visualization of an Action Notation program execution and the inspection of all semantic identities in terms of the given formal speci cation. These results are based on several new concepts. At rst, a formal description of Action Notation is provided by means of Montages. Montages are a semi-visual formalism for the speci cation of syntax and semantics of programming languages. Moreover, the structuring of Action Notation via facets is re ned and used to de ne a new speci cation architecture that ensures the required modularity. The tool support for Montages Gem-Mex automatically generates a prototypical implementation from the language's Montages speci cation.

The abstract state machines method for modular design and analysis of programming languages

“…See the complete Montages definition of the syntax, static and dynamic semantics of Oberon in [122] and of C in [109]. The development tool Gem-Mex [3] which allows one to create Montages has been applied in [2] to provide an executable has been successfully applied to the design (specification and implementation) of a driver specification language needed to solve a complex data warehouse problem at the Union Bank of Switzerland [124]. In [62] an ASM is defined for P3L, a programming language with task and data parallelism, describing the compiler generation of a network of processes and their runs.…”

A structure editor for the program composing assistant

“…There are many other systems and editors, like Gem-Mex [1], GSE (Generic Syntax-directed Editor) [18], ASE (Agora Structure Editor) [14] and the ABC structure editor [22]. The concept of structure editing is applicable to both program editors and graphic editors [25], [29].…”

“…expressions and statements). The consequences of using the editor are (1) no need of a full command of the programming language syntax, (2) the opportunity for serious reduction of syntactic (and semantic) errors and (3) an increase in the programmer's productivity. The first two points are probably more important for beginner and non-professional programmers; the third one is important for professional programmers.…”

Model Transformations in the Development of Data–Intensive Web Applications

“…Generating models in a formal setting can facilitate information traceability, reuse and evolution of software systems, but also represents a basis to reason about the intuitions encoded into unambiguous transformation descriptions. Furthermore, the ASM execution environment [2] represents an open framework with built-in support to syntax-tree manipulation (see [3]) useful for both tool integration and automatic transformation.…”