Bootstrapping a Small Translator Writing System.

Abstract

A rudimentary translator writing system is developed for easy implementation in about 2 pages of assembly language code. Although the system is based on backtrack parsing and lacks a scanner, it still performs useful translations in a few minutes of CPU time, with storage requirements of about 10K bytes, for a typical translation. The system is based on a ALGOL-like program by Michels which translates source language strings into target language strings, according to translation grammar which is specified using prefix Polish operators. Fortunately, the user does not need to specify translation grammars in Polish notation, because Michels gave a metagrammar which translates grammars in BNF-like notation (including the metagrammar itself) into Polish strings. This report shows how Michels' program can be implemented without the aid of an ALGOL compiler.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 28, 1977
Accession Number
ADA041632

Entities

People

  • Michael Fay

Organizations

  • University of California, Santa Cruz

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Assembly Languages
  • Compilers
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Grammars
  • Language
  • Linguistics
  • Machine Languages
  • Military Research
  • Notation
  • Numbers
  • Object Code
  • Operating Systems
  • Plastic Explosives
  • Production
  • Translations
  • Translators

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Data Science/Digital Signal Processing.