A syntax directed generator
Stephen Warshall · 1961
The recent proliferation of algebraic translators or compilers--programs which translate from an algebraic language (like ALGOL, IT, or Lo) to the hardware language of a digital computer--has stimulated a good deal of work on techniques of reducing the construction cost of such programs. There have been several essentially different approaches to this problem, notably:1. The development of a common intermediate language (UNCOL for Universal-Computer-Oriented Language [1]); for each algebraic language there would be written a translator from that language to UNCOL and for each new machine there would be written a translator from UNCOL to the language of that machine.2. The development of general-purpose translators which accept descriptions of the particular languages between which translation is to be effected. Such programs have been called syntax-directed compilers, because the general algorithm is driven by what are in essence tables of syntax.