UCS: using syntax diagrams for parsing

UCS: using syntax diagrams for parsing
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The Universal Compiler Shell (UCS) was briefly described in previous
messages (see, topic "extensible compilers"). Extensibility and
debugging were discussed (again many thanks for your replies).


Now, may I suggest for discussion another interesting feature of
UCS: in contrast to classical compilers UCS uses syntax diagrams
for parsing directly. In common sense, we can not be sure that any
compiler is exactly corresponded to syntax diagrams reproduced on a
paper in its manual. Moreover, proving of such correspondence is a
hard task for developers and testers of the compiler. The situation
is closely connected with well-known problems of standardisation.
The fact is that today the most popular compilers do not exactly
correspond to programming language standards. In the case of UCS
approach we are able to observe syntax diagrams which diagrams not
only printed on a paper for user's reading, but also control
parsing processes. In this case a developer has a real possibility
to correct the compiler via diagram correction. It looks
like much
more easy then compiler testing/ correction/ improvement for
classical approach.


What do you think about?


________________________________________________________________
Michael I. Trofimov
Russian Academy of Sci. Moscow, Russia
email: mtrofimov@glas.apc.org
http://www.glasnet.ru/~mtrofimov/
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