a parser project in a programming languages course.docVIP

A PARSER PROJECT IN A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES COURSE Michael Werner Department of Computer Science and Systems Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, MA 02115 (617) 734-6780 wernerm@ ABSTRACT This experience report describes a programming exercise designed to reinforce concepts of parsing, regular and context-free grammars, first sets, and abstract syntax trees. Students build a parser for a language with real applications. To make this feasible tools including a compiler compilers and automated support for the visitor design pattern, are used. The exercise is extensible. INTRODUCTION The Programming Languages Course at Wentworth Institute of Technology is unusual, in that it requires a supervised laboratory component. It is an essential part of Wentworth’s model of hands-on education. The challenge in the programming languages course is to come up with a series of laboratory projects that are directly relevant to the concepts discussed in the lectures. This paper describes one such project, the building of a parser for the Dot graphics language. The project was first used in the summer of 2002. A PARSER FOR THE DOT LANGUAGE The Dot Language was developed at ATT Bell Laboratories as a means of describing node and link graphs so that they can be automatically laid out and displayed. The idea for using the Dot language in a laboratory project came from Saumya Debray. The attraction for using it in Wentworths Programming Languages course is as follows: The Programming Languages course spends several weeks on lexing and parsing, so a laboratory exercise of the same duration is an effective means of reinforcing the concepts. Building a parser for a real programming language, such as Java is too big a job. On the other hand, using a toy language is contrived and trivializes the students effort. Only a subset of the Dot language is sufficient to describe very simple graphs. The full language is used to describe fancier graphs that allow for colors, line thickn