Mechanism for allocating statement frontier annotations to source code statements

• US 8,516,463 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2010
• Issued: 08/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Oliva, Alexandre
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang, Ben C
• Application Number:
  US12/789,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20110296389A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,180 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/151
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/73 Program documentation

Abstract

A mechanism for allocating statement frontier annotations to source code statements of a software program is disclosed. A method of embodiments of the invention includes generating statement frontier annotations during translation of source code statements of a software program on a computer system. The method further includes allocating the statement frontier annotations to the source code statements, wherein a statement frontier annotation indicates a frontier of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation is allocated.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

generating, by a processing device, a plurality of statement frontier annotations during translation of source code statements of a software program executed by the processing device for a compilation process;

allocating, by the processing device, the plurality of statement frontier annotations to the source code statements, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises information indicating at least one of a beginning or an end of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation is allocated; and

allocating, by the processing device, binding annotations to the source code statements during the translation of the source code statements, wherein the plurality of statement frontier annotations are fixed in location with respect to the information and corresponding binding annotations during the compilation process comprising at least one of amending or updating the corresponding binding annotation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises a beginning-of-statement annotation or an end-of-statement annotation.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the beginning-of-statement annotation indicates the beginning.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the end-of-statement annotation indicates the end.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the allocating comprises establishing a fixed reference location between a statement frontier annotation and the corresponding binding annotation of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation and the binding annotation are allocated.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising maintaining the fixed reference location by preventing the binding annotation from moving about with reference to the statement frontier annotation, while other compiler internal statements of the source code statement move about.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising continuously maintaining the fixed reference location if the binding annotation is updated.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the binding annotation is updated as necessitated.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein each of the statement frontier and binding annotations serve as another compiler internal statement of the source code statements.

10. A system comprising:

a processing device communicably coupled to a memory; and

a compiler executable from the memory by the processing device, the compiler having an annotation allocator to;

generate a plurality of statement frontier annotations during translation of source code statements of a software program executable by the processing device for a compilation process;

allocate the plurality of statement frontier annotations to the source code statements, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises information indicating at least one of a beginning or an end of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation is allocated; and

allocate binding annotations to the source code statements during the translation of the source code statements, wherein the plurality of statement frontier annotations are fixed in location with respect to the information and corresponding binding annotations during the compilation process comprising at least one of amending or updating the corresponding binding annotation.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises a beginning-of-statement annotation or an end-of-statement annotation.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the beginning-of-statement annotation indicates the beginning.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the end-of-statement annotation indicates the end.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the allocating comprises establishing a fixed reference location between a statement frontier annotation and the corresponding binding annotation of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation and the binding annotation are allocated.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the annotation allocator is further to maintain the fixed reference location by preventing the corresponding binding annotation from moving about with reference to the statement frontier annotation, while other compiler internal statements of the source code statement move about.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including data that, when accessed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:

generating, by the processing device, a plurality of statement frontier annotations during translation of source code statements of a software program executable by processing device for compilation process;

allocating, by the processing device, the plurality of statement frontier annotations to the source code statements, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises information indicating at least one of a beginning or an end of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation is allocated; and

allocating, by the processing device, binding annotations to the source code statements during the translation of the source code statements, wherein the plurality of statement frontier annotations are fixed in location with respect to the information and corresponding binding annotations during the compilation process comprising at least one of amending or updating the corresponding binding annotation.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein each of the plurality of statement frontier annotations comprises a beginning-of-statement annotation or an end-of-statement annotation.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the beginning-of-statement annotation indicates the beginning.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the end-of-statement annotation indicates the end.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the allocating comprises establishing a fixed reference location between a statement frontier annotation and corresponding binding annotation of a source code statement to which the statement frontier annotation and the binding annotation are allocated.