Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Attribute Grammars have turned into one of the most fundamental formalisms of modern Computer Science. Since 1968 when Knuth introduced the basic concepts, they have been the subject of a very large amount of literature, proving the importance of the area and the broad range of its applications. The aim of the book is to put at the disposal of researchers and students, but also of engineers interested in applications, the most important definitions and results known to date in this youthful domain. This seemed best achieved by a survey including three parts: 1) A state-of-the-art review of the main results and of the most promising research directions: this part aims at being both an aid for the reader in understanding the bibliography, by presenting the results using a unified vocabulary together with numerous pointers to the literature, and also an incitement to go into further results and research areas. 2) A presentation of most of the systems dealing with Attribute Grammars: the main interest in this part lays in the presentation of the implementation choices and of the applications. This part is the "practical" side of the book, emphasizing the point of view of "design" which can outline the differences between a theoretical idea and the way it can be implemented. 3) A bibliography including about 600 titles on the domain, together with a thematic index enabling readers to find their way easily in accordance with their own points of interest.