Method and system for generating a computer program

• US 6,966,054 B2
• Filed: 12/05/2000
• Issued: 11/15/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/1993
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simonyi, Charles
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo, Ted T.
• Application Number:
  US09/730,375
• Publication Number:
  US 20010037496A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,806 Days
• Field of Search: 717110-119, 717141-147, 717154-161, 707100-102
• US Class Current: 717/144
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/30 Creation or generation of source code
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/33 Intelligent editors
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/967 Visual or iconic programming

Abstract

A method and system is described for generating executable code for a computer program. A programmer creates an intentional program tree using a syntax-independent editor. The editor allows a programmer to directly manipulate the intentional program tree. The intentional program tree has nodes. Each node represents a high-level computational construct of the computer program. For each node representing a high-level computational construct, the system transforms the node into an implementation of the high-level computational construct using low-level computational constructs. For each node representing a low-level computational construct, the system generates executable code that implements the low-level computational construct. The system further provides that where a high-level computational construct has a plurality of implementations of the high-level computational construct, the system transforms the nodes by selecting one of the implementations and transforms the node in accordance with the selected implementation. The system further provides that the implementation is selected by automatically analyzing semantics of the intentional program tree.

Claims

1. One or more computer readable media comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, direct a computer to implement a method comprising:

receiving multiple nodes of a program tree as user-selected node inputs, each of the nodes specifying a declaration pointer and an operand pointer to another node;

storing the multiple nodes of the program tree that is a syntax-independent representation of a computer program such that the declaration pointers and the operand pointers interconnect the nodes to form the program tree;

identifying a syntax-independent programming intent represented as a first of the multiple nodes of the program tree;

identifying a second of the multiple nodes of the program tree, the second node being referenced from the first node and containing data; and

generating a unique name for the computer program represented by the Syntax-independent programming intent.

2. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, direct the computer to implement the method further comprising executing the computer program identified by the unique name.

3. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1 wherein the computer program comprises low level computational construct.

4. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1 wherein the multiple nodes of the program tree comprise a hierarchical tree of nodes that each represent the syntax-independent programming intent.

5. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, direct the computer to maintain the program tree as a data structure that includes:

the first of the multiple nodes configured for display as a representation of the syntax-independent programming intent;

the second of the multiple nodes having the data configured for manipulation when implementing the syntax-independent programming intent; and

wherein the first node has a unique identifier of the second node, and the first node uniquely identifies the computer program for implementing the syntax-independent programming intent.

6. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 5, wherein the data structure further comprises:

a node type tag and unique identifier pointing to implementation code;

an optional data section; and

a list of offspring of the node identified by the node type tag and a list of pointers to further nodes.

7. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the multiple nodes of the program tree comprise a hierarchical tree of the multiple nodes that are configured for display as a representation of the syntax-independent programming intent, and wherein each of the multiple nodes uniquely identify the computer program for implementing the syntax-independent programming intent.

8. One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 1 wherein the multiple nodes comprise nodes selected from multiple different computational constructs.

9. A method of handling data, comprising:

receiving multiple nodes of a hierarchical tree that is a syntax-independent representation of a computer program, each of the nodes received as user-selected node inputs that specify a declaration pointer and an operand pointer to another node;

storing the multiple nodes as a data structure such that the declaration pointers and the operand pointers interconnect the nodes to form the hierarchical tree;

reading a syntax-independent programming intent represented as a first of the multiple nodes of the hierarchical tree;

identifying a second of the multiple nodes of the hierarchical tree, the second node being referenced from the first node and containing data; and

generating a unique name for the computer program represented by the syntax-independent programming intent.

10. A method as recited in claim 9 further comprising executing the computer program identified by the unique name.

11. A method as recited in claim 9 wherein the computer program comprises low level computational constructs.

12. A method as recited in claim 9 wherein the multiple nodes comprise the hierarchical tree, and wherein each of the multiple nodes represent a programming intent.