Tree Tuple Languages from the Logic Programming Point of View

We introduce inductive definitions over language expressions as a framework for specifying tree tuple languages. Inductive definitions and their subclasses correspond naturally to classes of logic programs, and operations on tree tuple languages correspond to the transformation of logic programs. We present an algorithm based on unfolding and definition introduction that is able to deal with several classes of tuple languages in a uniform way. Termination proofs for clause classes translate directly to closure properties of tuple languages, leading to new decidability and computability results for the latter.     

Language support for model-driven software development

This paper is about language technology for facilitating model-driven software development. We argue that two features are important for this purpose: (a) support for explicit meta-representation of programs as an AST-like structure (AST stands for abstract syntax tree) accessible in a programmatic way before and beyond the compilation, and (b) support for user-defined annotations of program elements. That is, we argue for language platforms organized around a Generalized Annotated AST, or GAAST languages for short. We outline the problems with a model-driven development process based on languages without such a support and show how GAAST language technology addresses these problems.     

Effective strategic programming for Java developers

In object programming languages, the Visitor design pattern allows separation of algorithms and data structures. When applying this pattern to tree‐like structures, programmers are always confronted with the difficulty of making their code evolve. One reason is that the code implementing the algorithm is interwound with the code implementing the traversal inside the visitor. When implementing algorithms such as data analyses or transformations, encoding the traversal directly into the algorithm turns out to be cumbersome as this type of algorithm only focuses on a small part of the data‐structure model (e.g., program optimization). Unfortunately, typed programming languages like Java do not offer simple solutions for expressing generic traversals. Rewrite‐based languages like ELAN or Stratego have introduced the notion of strategies to express both generic traversal and rule application control in a declarative way. Starting from this approach, our goal was to make the notion of strategic programming available in a widely used language such as Java and thus to offer generic traversals in typed Java structures. In this paper, we present the strategy language SL that provides programming support for strategies in Java. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On regular tree languages and deterministic pushdown automata

The theory of formal string languages and of formal tree languages are both important parts of the theory of formal languages. Regular tree languages are recognized by finite tree automata. Trees in their postfix notation can be seen as strings. This paper presents a simple transformation from any given (bottom-up) finite tree automaton recognizing a regular tree language to a deterministic pushdown automaton accepting the same tree language in postfix notation. The resulting deterministic pushdown automaton can be implemented easily by an existing parser generator because it is constructed for an LR(0) grammar, and its size directly corresponds to the size of the deterministic finite tree automaton. The class of regular tree languages in postfix notation is a proper subclass of deterministic context-free string languages. Moreover, the class of tree languages which are in their postfix notation deterministic context-free string languages is a proper superclass of the class of regular tree languages.     

Recursive generation of local adjunct languages

The local adjunct grammars and languages have been introduced by Joshi, Kosaraju, and Yamada in response to linguistic considerations. These grammars differ fundamentally from the Chomsky phrase-structure grammars, and they generate a distinct class of languages.In this paper, it is shown that the local adjunct languages are actually closely related to the regular and context-free languages, despite the entirely different form of definition. The adjunct languages are obtained by closure of the finite set of strings under the set operations of union, product, and a new operation, iterated adjunction. This method of generating adjunct languages is of exactly the same form as that of the regular sets (closure under union, product, and Kleene star) and a more recent characterization of the CFL's derived independently by several authors. In fact, iterated adjunction is obtained by a natural modification of the iterated substitution operation used to generate the CFL's.The material in this paper has appeared in part in the author's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, August, 1972.     

基于XPath的XML查询优化

随着XML作为Internet上数据表示和交换的标准,如何高效地进行XML数据的查询己经变得越来越重要,许多XML查询语言也随之出现。这些查询语言虽然种类繁多,但都有个共同特征:使用基于XPath数据模型下规则路径表示来查询XML数据。研究表明,当前的关系数据库技术在处理规则路径表示的查询时通常效率不高。文章在介绍了传统的基于遍历树的方法的基础上重点讨论了基于路径分解的查询处理算法,并对选择连接顺序算法提出了基于动态规划思想的改进。     

Spinal-Formed Context-Free Tree Grammars

In this paper we introduce a restricted model of context-free tree grammars called spine grammars, and study their formal properties including considerably simple normal forms. Recent research on natural languages has suggested that formalisms for natural languages need to generate a slightly larger class of languages than context-free grammars, and for that reason tree adjoining grammars have been widely studied relating them to natural languages. It is shown that the class of string languages generated by spine grammars coincides with that of tree adjoining grammars. We also introduce acceptors called linear pushdown tree automata, and show that linear pushdown tree automata accept exactly the class of tree languages generated by spine grammars. Linear pushdown tree automata are obtained from pushdown tree automata with a restriction on duplicability for the pushdown stacks. Received May 29, 1998, and in revised form April 27, 1999, and in final form May 10, 1999.     

Closure properties of linear context-free tree languages with an application to optimality theory

Context-free tree grammars, originally introduced by Rounds [Math. Systems Theory 4(3) (1970) 257–287], are powerful grammar devices for the definition of tree languages. The properties of the class of context-free tree languages have been studied for more than three decades now. Particularly important here is the work by Engelfriet and Schmidt [J. Comput. System Sci. 15(3) (1977) 328–353, 16(1) (1978) 67–99]. In the present paper, we consider a subclass of the class of context-free tree languages, namely the class of linear context-free tree languages. A context-free tree grammar is linear, if no rule permits the copying of subtrees. For this class of linear context-free tree languages we show that the grammar derivation mode, which is very important for the general class of context-free tree languages, is immaterial. The main result we present is the closure of the class of linear context-free tree languages under linear frontier-to-root tree transduction mappings. Two further results are the closure of this class under linear root-to-frontier tree transduction mappings and under intersection with regular tree languages.     

基于XPath的XML查询优化

随着XML作为Internet上数据表示和交换的标准,如何高效地进行XML数据的查询己经变得越来越重要,许多XML查询语言也随之出现。这些查询语言虽然种类繁多,但都有个共同特征：使用基于XPath数据模型下规则路径表示来查询XML数据。研究表明,当前的关系数据库技术在处理规则路径表示的查询时通常效率不高。 文章在介绍了传统的基于遍历树的方法的基础上重点讨论了基于路径分解的查询处理算法,并对选择连接顺序算法提出了基于动态规划思想的改进,     

函数式逻辑语言的操作语义

函数式语言和逻辑语言在下列意义上是互补的,基于归约的函数式程序设计语言具有确定和懒惰求解等性质.但同时它又缺少诸如存在量化的变量以及部分数据结构等所希望的性质.相反,基于HORN子句逻辑和消解原理的逻辑程序设计语言允许存在量化的变量和部分数据结构但又缺少确定和懒惰求解的性质.从这个角度出发,把函数和逻辑程序设计语言结合成一种范型是很自然的,这种结合提供了一种比逻辑和函数语言表达能力更强的合一语言.提出了函数式逻辑语言的操作语义,同时表明这种操作语义在实践中是可见的.     

Manipulating Tree Tuple Languages by Transforming Logic Programs

We introduce inductive definitions over language expressions as a framework for specifying tree tuple languages. Inductive definitions and their sub-classes correspond naturally to classes of logic programs, and operations on tree tuple languages correspond to the transformation of logic programs. We present an algorithm based on unfolding and definition introduction that is able to deal with several classes of tuple languages in a uniform way. Termination proofs for clause classes translate directly to closure properties of tuple languages, leading to new decidability and computability results for the latter.     

Forward and backward application of symbolic tree transducers

We consider symbolic tree automata (sta) and symbolic regular tree grammars and their corresponding classes of tree languages: s-recognizable tree languages and s-regular tree languages. We prove that the following three classes are equal: the class of s-recognizable tree languages, the class of s-regular tree languages, and the class of images of classical recognizable tree languages under tree relabelings. Moreover, the sta and the recently introduced variable tree automata are incomparable with respect to their recognition power. Also, we consider symbolic tree transducers (stt) and prove the following theorems. The syntactic composition of two stt computes the composition of the tree transformations computed by each stt, provided that (1) the first one is deterministic or the second one is linear and (2) the first one is total or the second one is nondeleting. Backward application of an stt to any s-recognizable tree language yields an s-recognizable tree language. There is a linear stt of which the range is not an s-recognizable tree language. Forward application of simple and linear stt preserves s-recognizability. A restricted version of both the type checking problem of simple and linear stt, and the inverse type checking problem of arbitrary stt is decidable. Since we deal with trees over infinite alphabets, we require appropriate conditions on sta and stt such that all the proofs are constructive.     

A comparison of object-oriented programming in four modern languages

Object-oriented programming has become a widely used, important programming paradigm that is supported in many different languages. C++ has become the most widely used object-oriented language and many C++ programmers are unfamiliar with the different approaches taken by other languages in the paradigm. This paper is intended as an introduction to a broad range of ideas in object-oriented programming. Specifically, we introduce four modern programming languages that support object-oriented programming (Oberon-2, Modula-3, Sather and Self), and show how a simple application is coded in these languages. While each of these programming languages provide support for inheritance, dynamic dispatch, code reuse, and information hiding, they do so in very different ways and with varying levels of efficiency and simplicity. The use of a simple example, based on a common programming problem, facilitates our comparison. We have coded the application in all of these languages, including C++, and we compare the compile times, object code sizes, and run times of the available implementations. Implementations of all the languages compared and all of the programs we measure are available on the Internet. Ultimately, our goal is to encourage and facilitate programmers in understanding and exploring a variety of object-oriented programming languages.     

Pushdown tree automata

We define topdown pushdown tree automata (PDTA's) which extend the usual string pushdown automata by allowing trees instead of strings in both the input and the stack. We prove that PDTA's recognize the class of context-free tree languages. (Quasi)realtime and deterministic PDTA's accept the classes of Greibach and deterministic tree languages, respectively. Finally, PDTA's are shown to be equivalent to restricted PDTA's, whose stack is linear: this both yields a more operational way of recognizing context-free tree languages and connects them with the class of indexed languages.     

Adding multidimensionality to procedural programming languages

One of the most serious shortcomings of multidimensional languages is their inability to collaborate with conventional programming languages and systems. Multidimensional languages are used to define (potentially infinite) streams, grids, cubes, and so on, concepts which resemble in nature the familiar imperative arrays. The main difference is that the former entities are lazy while the latter are generally eager. This paper proposes the embedding of multidimensional languages into conventional ones as a form of definitional lazy arrays. The paper describes the details of an implementation of the proposed idea, as well as the expressibility and the performance of the resulting system. The main advantage of the new approach is that multidimensional languages can now benefit from the advanced features that have been developed for conventional languages. Moreover, multidimensionality adds to conventional languages the idea of lazy arrays, which in many cases offer significant advantages compared to the classical imperative arrays. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Generating Power of Total Deterministic Tree Transducers

Attributed tree transducers are abstract models used to study properties of attribute grammars. One abstraction which occurs when modeling attribute grammars by attributed tree transducers is that arbitrary trees over a ranked alphabet are taken as input, instead of derivation trees of a context-free grammar. In this paper we show that with respect to the generating power this isnotan abstraction; i.e., we show that attributed tree transducers and attribute grammars generate the same class of term (or tree) languages. To prove this, a number of results concerning the generating power of top-down tree transducers are established, which are interesting in their own. We also show that the classes of output languages of attributed tree transducers form a hierarchy with respect to the number of attributes. The latter result is achieved by proving a hierarchy of classes of tree languages generated by context-free hypergraph grammars with respect to their rank.     

C for Econometricians

Fortran has long been the mother-tongue of the scientific community. This note looks at the C programming language from the viewpoint of numerical computing with the emphasis placed on econometric applications. C can be used as a replacement for other lower level programming languages, and also a replacement or as a complement to higher level matrix programming languages such as GAUSS, MATLAB, Ox, and S-PLUS.     

Towards the uniform implementation of declarative languages

Current implementation techniques for functional languages differ considerably from those for logic languages. This complicates the development of flexible and efficient abstract machines that can be used for the compilation of declarative languages combining concepts of functional and logic programming. We propose an abstract machine, called the JUMP-machine, which systematically integrates the operational concepts needed to implement the functional and logic programming paradigm. The use of a tagless representation for heap objects, which originates from the Spineless Tagless G-machine, supports the integration of different concepts. In this paper, we provide a functional logic kernel language and show how to translate it into the abstract machine language of the JUMP-machine. Furthermore, we define the operational semantics of the machine language formally and discuss the mapping of the abstract machine to concrete machine architectures. We tested the approach by writing a compiler for the functional logic language GTML. The obtained performance results indicate that the proposed method allows to implement functional logic languages efficiently.