Engineering a Simple, Efficient Code Generator Generator
- David R. Hanson ,
- Todd A. Proebsting ,
- Christopher Fraser
Published by Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Many code generator generators use tree pattern matching and dynamic programming. This note describes a simple program that generates matchers that are fast, compact, and easy to understand. It is simpler than common alternatives: 200-700 lines of Icon or 950 lines of C versus 3000 lines of C for Twig and 5000 for burg. Its matchers run up to 25 times faster than Twig’s. They are necessarily slower than burg’s BURS (bottom-up rewrite system) matchers but they are more flexible and still practical.
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