Content area

Abstract

This paper presents a revolutionary way to parse computer programming languages without a traditional grammar. The motivation behind this approach is to dramatically increase scalability. The intention is to be able to parse and analyze billions of lines of code written in hundreds of programming languages. To achieve that goal, it is advantageous to have sharable, open-source, modular ways for defining the syntax and semantics of programming languages. The new parsing technique replaces a traditional grammar with a computer program, referred to as a Programmar (short for program and grammar). All the basic operations in BNF (sequencing, alternation, optional terms, repeating and grouping) are supported, and the Java code is both sharable and modular. This parsing approach enables dozens or even hundreds of developers to work on computer program analysis concurrently, while avoiding many of the consistency issues encountered when building grammars and associated code analysis tools.

Details

Title
Programmars: A Revolution in Computer Language Parsing
Pages
125-131
Number of pages
7
Publication year
2015
Publication date
2015
Publisher
The Steering Committee of The World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp)
Place of publication
Athens
Country of publication
United States
Publication subject
Source type
Conference Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Feature
Document feature
References
ProQuest document ID
1705668844
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/conference-papers-proceedings/programmars-revolution-computer-language-parsing/docview/1705668844/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
Copyright The Steering Committee of The World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp) 2015
Last updated
2024-08-27
Database
ProQuest One Academic