The Definition Mechanism for Standard PL/I

The mechanism used to define the programming language PL/I in the recently adopted American National Standard is presented. This method provides a rigorous though semiformal specification of the language. If uses the model of translation of programs into an abstract form to define the context-free and context-sensitive syntax. The semantics are defined by the interpretation of the abstract form of the program on a hypothetical machine. The method and metalanguage are presented along with several small examples to illustrate the definition technique's features. The complete definition process is shown by the definition of a small example language.

[1]  P. J. Landin,et al.  A correspondence between ALGOL 60 and Church's Lambda-notations: Part II , 1965, CACM.

[2]  C ElgotCalvin,et al.  Random-Access Stored-Program Machines, an Approach to Programming Languages , 1964 .

[3]  John W. Backus,et al.  The syntax and semantics of the proposed international algebraic language of the Zurich ACM-GAMM Conference , 1959, IFIP Congress.

[4]  B. J. Mailloux,et al.  Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 68 , 1969 .

[5]  Thomas B. Steel.  Standards for Computers and Information Processing , 1967, Adv. Comput..

[6]  B. J. Mailloux,et al.  Report of Algorithmic Language ALGOL 68 , 1969 .

[7]  David Beech,et al.  A Structural View of PL/I , 1970, CSUR.

[8]  Peter Wegner,et al.  The Vienna Definition Language , 1972, CSUR.

[9]  P. J. Landin,et al.  Correspondence between ALGOL 60 and Church's Lambda-notation , 1965, Commun. ACM.

[10]  Alfred V. Aho,et al.  The Theory of Parsing, Translation, and Compiling , 1972 .

[11]  E. Lohse,et al.  A Correspondence Between ALGOL 60 and Church's Lambda- Notation: Part I* , 1965 .

[12]  Abraham Robinson,et al.  Random-Access Stored-Program Machines, an Approach to Programming Languages , 1964, JACM.

[13]  John McCarthy.  A Formal Description of a Subset of Algol , 1964 .

[14]  Peter Wegner,et al.  Operational semantics of programming languages , 1972, Proving Assertions About Programs.

[15]  P Lucas,et al.  On the formal description of PL/I , 1969 .

[16]  Michael Marcotty,et al.  Unfurling the PL/I standard , 1973, SIGP.

[17]  David Beech.  On the definitional method of standard PL/I , 1973, POPL '73.

[18]  John McCarthy,et al.  Towards a Mathematical Science of Computation , 1962, IFIP Congress.