PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE WITH EXTENSIBLE SYNTAX

• US 20100088686A1
• Filed: 12/01/2008
• Published: 04/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Williams, Joshua, Box, Donald F., Della-Libera, Giovanni M., Langworthy, David E., Lovering, Bradford H.
• Application Number:
  US12/325,753
• Publication Number:
  US 20100088686A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/143
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/41 Compilation

Abstract

The subject disclosure relates to an extensible syntax for a scripting language that allows data intensive applications to be written in a compact, human friendly, textual format, and also according to self-defined syntax within the data intensive applications so that a single compilation unit of a program can support multiple syntaxes. An extensible syntax is provided for M that allows alternate syntaxes to be defined in line and then used in the program so as to accommodate user-defined syntaxes and other pre-existing domain specific languages. In one embodiment, the alternate syntaxes can be defined at pre-designated functional points in the program.

Claims

1. A method for generating at least one programming module with a declarative programming language, including:

receiving, in memory of a computing device, textual input of a declarative source code including receiving, within the same program, native textual input specified according to a native syntax of the declarative programming language and foreign textual input specified according to a different syntax than the native syntax;

receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax; and

compiling the source code including extending the rules of the native syntax with rules associated with the definition of the different syntax to form a set of extended syntax rules.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the compiling includes converting the different syntax to data values that conform to the terminology and grammatical rules of the host programming language.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax includes receiving, within the source code, a definition of a set of nested syntaxes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax includes receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax that is scoped to enclosing definitions.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax includes receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax at one of a set of pre-fixed positions from a program function standpoint.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax includes receiving, within the source code, a definition of the different syntax at a top level declaration, a module member declaration or an Expression.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the compiling includes:

first parsing the source code according to a first pass in order to extract new syntax rules defined within the source code by the definition of the different syntax; and

second parsing the source code according to at least one additional pass to extract the textual input according to the extended syntax rules.

8. The method of claim 7, further including generating a semantic graph structure following the first parsing and merging abstract tree structures generated following the second parsing into the semantic graph structure.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the first parsing includes scanning the source code and extracting at least one syntax declaration.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first parsing includes scanning the source code and extracting at least one declaration beginning with the keyword “

syntax”

.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the second parsing includes ignoring syntax declarations.

12. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions at least partially compiled from source code of a declarative programming language according to the method of claim 1.

13. A computer program product generated based on computer programming constructs of a declarative programming language, the computer program product generated from a method including:

receiving textual input of a declarative source code including, within the same data stream representing the source code, first textual input specified according to a first syntax of the declarative programming language, at least one definition of at least one second syntax different from the first syntax, and second textual input specified according to the at least one second syntax; and

compiling the textual input of the data stream to form the computer program product.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the receiving includes receiving the first textual input and the at least one definition of the at least one second syntax in the same expression of the declarative source code.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the receiving includes receiving the first textual input and the at least one definition of the at least one second syntax at a module level declaration of the declarative source code.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the compiling includes first parsing the data stream for constructs of the first syntax and identifying the at least one definition of the at least one second syntax and constructs of the at least one second syntax.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the compiling includes second parsing the data stream for constructs of the at least one second syntax based on the at least one definition identified.

18. A compiler comprising,

an interface for receiving textual input of a declarative source code including, within the same compilation unit, first textual input specified according to a native syntax of the declarative programming language, second textual input specified according to at least one syntax, each different from the native syntax and at least one definition of the at least one syntax located at permissible pre-determined positions within the source code;

and

a parser that first parses over the first textual input to form a main tree structure and identifies the at least one definition and corresponding second textual input, and afterwards, parses over the second textual input based on the at least one definition and merges output of the parsing of the second textual input into the main tree structure.

19. The compiler of claim 18, wherein the parser forms a semantic graph structure following the first parsing over the first textual input and merges abstract tree structures, generated as output following the parsing of the second textual input, into the semantic graph structure.

20. The compiler of claim 18, wherein the parser scans the textual input of the declarative source code and extracts at least one syntax declaration including a definition of a set of nested syntaxes.