Two-level grammar: an implementable metalanguage for consistent and complementary language specifications
This work introduces two-level grammar (TLG) as a programming language from giving consistent and complementary definitions of programming languages in an implementable manner. It is shown that TLG is a functional programming language. Advantages of using the TLG as a programming language are readability and strong typing of function domains. To execute TLG specifications directly, algorithms for sequential and data flow models of interpretation of TLG's are given. TLG allows the closest to programming in natural language the author has seen,and hence TLG programs are self-documenting. With the above advantages, TLG is an elegant executable metalanguage. To demonstrate the capability of TLG to give consistent and complementary language specifications, a Pascal-like language with recursive procedures and recursive functions and the usual control constructs is used as a subject language. The uniqueness of this work is that this is first time a single metalanguage is being used to define languages using the three accepted methods. The significance of the results is that semantics-directed implementation is made possible from an operational or a denotational definition.
- Research Organization:
- Alabama Univ., Birmingham (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 7183835
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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