Parsing Nonlinear Languages

The diagrammatic approach to user interfaces for computer-aided software development toolkits, visual query systems, and visual programming environments, is based on the use of diagrams and charts traditionally drawn on paper. In particular, the VLG system (Visual Language Generator) has been proposed to generate icon-oriented visual languages customized for given applications. The syntactical model underlying the interpretation of a visual language in VLG has been designed to describe icon-oriented visual languages. In order to enable the VLG system to apply to any kind of graphical languages, like diagrammatic ones, it is necessary to find a more general syntactical model able to support both their generation and interpretation. This paper addresses the comprehension of the features that a grammatical formalism for nonlinear languages must have to match any requirement for an efficient parsing. To this aim, relation grammars support an easy implementation of a general parsing algorithm for multidimensional languages, parametric with respect to the rewriting rules of the grammar. We compare the expressive power of relation grammars to grammatical formalisms for graph grammars. >

[1]  Kim Marriott,et al.  Declarative specification of visual languages , 1990, Proceedings of the 1990 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[2]  Horst Bunke.  Graph Grammars as a generative tool in image understanding , 1982, Graph-Grammars and Their Application to Computer Science.

[3]  Ephraim P. Glinert,et al.  Pict: An Interactive Graphical Programming Environment , 1984, Computer.

[4]  S. K. Chang,et al.  A Visual Language Compiler , 1987, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[5]  Genny Tortora,et al.  Automating Visual Language Generation , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[6]  Takayuki Dan Kimura,et al.  Show and Tell User's Manual , 1986 .

[7]  Masahito Hirakawa,et al.  An Iconic Programming System, HI-VISUAL , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[8]  Carlo Ghezzi,et al.  Context-Free Graph Grammars , 1978, Inf. Control..

[9]  Tiziana Catarci,et al.  QBD*: A Graphical Query Language with Recursion , 1989, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[10]  Robert J. K. Jacob,et al.  A State Transition Diagram Language for Visual Programming , 1985, Computer.

[11]  Eric J. Golin,et al.  Early Experience with the Visual Programmer's WorkBench , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[12]  Shi-Kuo Chang,et al.  Visual Languages and Visual Programming , 1990 .

[13]  David Harel,et al.  Statecharts: A Visual Formalism for Complex Systems , 1987, Sci. Comput. Program..

[14]  Steven P. Reiss.  Graphical program development with PECAN program development systems , 1984 .

[15]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  Graph grammars with node-label controlled rewriting and embedding , 1982, Graph-Grammars and Their Application to Computer Science.

[16]  Mariusz Flasiński.  Parsing of edNLC-graph grammars for scene analysis , 1988, Pattern Recognit..

[17]  Kent Wittenburg.  Earley-style parsing for relational grammars , 1992, Proceedings IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[18]  Hans-Jörg Kreowski,et al.  On structured graph grammars. II , 1990, Inf. Sci..

[19]  Genny Tortora,et al.  Relation grammars for modelling multi-dimensional structures , 1990, Proceedings of the 1990 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[20]  Theodosios Pavlidis,et al.  Linear and Context-Free Graph Grammars , 1972, JACM.

[21]  Terrence W. Pratt,et al.  Pair Grammars, Graph Languages and String-to-Graph Translations , 1971, J. Comput. Syst. Sci..

[22]  Mark Moriconi,et al.  Visualizing Program Designs Through PegaSys , 1985, Computer.

[23]  Genny Tortora,et al.  Efficient parsing of multidimensional structures , 1991, Proceedings 1991 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[24]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  On sequential and parallel node-rewriting graph grammars , 1982, Comput. Graph. Image Process..

[25]  King-Sun Fu,et al.  Parsing and Translation of (Attributed) Expansive Graph Languages for Scene Analysis , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[26]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  On the structure of node-label-controlled graph languages , 1980, Inf. Sci..

[27]  Shi-Kuo Chang.  A Visual Language Compiler for Information Retrieval by Visual Reasoning , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[28]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  Boundary NLC Graph Grammars-Basic Definitions, Normal Forms, and Complexity , 1986, Inf. Control..

[29]  Andrzej Ehrenfeucht,et al.  Restrictions on NLC Graph Grammars , 1984, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[30]  Annegret Habel,et al.  Pretty Patterns Produced by Hyperedge Replacement , 1987, WG.

[31]  Eric J. Golin,et al.  The specification of visual language syntax , 1989, [Proceedings] 1989 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[32]  Mariusz Flasiński.  Characteristics of edNLC-graph grammar for syntactic pattern recognition , 1989, Comput. Vis. Graph. Image Process..

[33]  Louis Weitzman,et al.  Visual grammars and incremental parsing for interface languages , 1990, Proceedings of the 1990 IEEE Workshop on Visual Languages.

[34]  Tadao Ichikawa,et al.  Guest Editors' Introduction Visual Programming , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[35]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  Handle NLC Grammars and R.E. Languages , 1987, J. Comput. Syst. Sci..

[36]  Genny Tortora,et al.  Relation grammars and their application to multi-dimensional languages , 1991, J. Vis. Lang. Comput..

[37]  Genny Tortora,et al.  Grammatical inference algorithms for the generation of visual languages , 1990, J. Vis. Lang. Comput..

[38]  Manfred Kaul.  Parsing of graphs in linear time , 1982, Graph-Grammars and Their Application to Computer Science.