How to make a syntax manipulator? - syntax

Question

Firstly, sorry for the question, I know I've heard something that could help, but I just can't remember.
Basically I would like to create my own syntax for a programming language. For example this code:
WRITE OUT 'Hello World!'
NEW LINE
would turn into this Java code:
System.out.print("Hello World!");
System.out.println();
How could I achieve this? Is there a method?

Answer 1

Olá.
There are techniques and proper algorithms to do that.
Search for "compiler techniques" and "Interpreter pattern".
An initial approach could be a basic pattern interpreter.
Assuming simple sentences and only one sentence per line, you could read the input file line by line and search for defined patterns (regular expressions).
The patterns describe the structure of the commands in your invented language.
If you get a match then you do the translation.
In particular, we use the regex.h library in c to perform the regular expression search.
Of course regex is also available in java.
Ex. NEW LINE match the pattern " *NEW +LINE *"
The * means that the preceding character occurs 0 or more times.
The + means that the preceding character occurs 1 or more times.
Thus, this pattern can match the command " NEW LINE " with arbitrary spaces between the words.
Ex. WRITE OUT 'Hello World!' match the pattern "WRITE OUT '([[:print:]]*)'"
or if you want to allow spaces " *WRITE +OUT +'([[:print:]]*)' *"
[[:print:]] means: match one printable character (ex. 'a' or 'Z' or '0' or '+')
Thus, [[:print:]]* match a sequence of 0, 1 or more printable characters
If a line of your input file matched the pattern of some command then you can do the translation, but in most cases you will need to retrieve some information before,
ex. the arbitrary text after WRITE OUT. Thats why you need to put parenthesis around [[:print:]]*. That will indicate to the function that perform the search that you want retrieve that particular part of your pattern.
A nice coincidence is that I recently assisted a friend with an college project similar to the problem you want to solve: a translator from c to basic. I reused that code to make an example for you.
I tested the code and it works.
It can translate:
WRITE OUT 'some text'
WRITE OUT variable
NEW LINE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <regex.h>
#include <string.h>
#define STR_SHORT 100
#define MATCHES_SIZE 10
/**************************************************************
Returns the string of a match
**************************************************************/
char * GetExp(char *Source, char *Destination, regmatch_t Matches) {
//Source The string that was searched
//Destination Will contains the matched string
//Matches One element of the vector passed to regexec
int Length = Matches.rm_eo - Matches.rm_so;
strncpy(Destination, Source+Matches.rm_so, Length);
Destination[Length]=0;
return Destination;
}
/**************************************************************
MAIN
**************************************************************/
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
//Usage
if (argc==1) {
printf("Usage:\n");
printf("interpreter source_file\n");
printf("\n");
printf("Implements a very basic interpreter\n");
return 0;
}
//Open the source file
FILE *SourceFile;
if ( (SourceFile=fopen(argv[1], "r"))==NULL )
return 1;
//This variable is used to get the strings that matched the pattern
//Matches[0] -> the whole string being searched
//Matches[1] -> first parenthetical
//Matches[2] -> second parenthetical
regmatch_t Matches[MATCHES_SIZE];
char MatchedStr[STR_SHORT];
//Regular expression for NEW LINE
regex_t Regex_NewLine;
regcomp(&Regex_NewLine, " *NEW +LINE *", REG_EXTENDED);
//Regular expression for WRITE OUT 'some text'
regex_t Regex_WriteOutStr;
regcomp(&Regex_WriteOutStr, " *WRITE +OUT +'([[:print:]]*)' *", REG_EXTENDED);
//Regular expresion for WRITE OUT variable
regex_t Regex_WriteOutVar;
regcomp(&Regex_WriteOutVar, " *WRITE +OUT +([_[:alpha:]][[:alnum:]]*) *", REG_EXTENDED);
//Regular expression for an empty line'
regex_t Regex_EmptyLine;
regcomp(&Regex_EmptyLine, "^([[:space:]]+)$", REG_EXTENDED);
//Now we read the file line by line
char Buffer[STR_SHORT];
while( fgets(Buffer, STR_SHORT, SourceFile)!=NULL ) {
//printf("%s", Buffer);
//Shorcut for an empty line
if ( regexec(&Regex_EmptyLine, Buffer, MATCHES_SIZE, Matches, 0)==0 ) {
printf("\n");
continue;
}
//NEW LINE
if ( regexec(&Regex_NewLine, Buffer, MATCHES_SIZE, Matches, 0)==0 ) {
printf("System.out.println();\n");
continue;
}
//WRITE OUT 'some text'
if ( regexec(&Regex_WriteOutStr, Buffer, MATCHES_SIZE, Matches, 0)==0 ) {
printf("System.out.print(\"%s\");\n", GetExp(Buffer, MatchedStr, Matches[1]));
continue;
}
//WRITE OUT variable
//Assumes variable is a string variable
if ( regexec(&Regex_WriteOutVar, Buffer, MATCHES_SIZE, Matches, 0)==0 ) {
printf("System.out.print(\"%%s\", %s);\n", GetExp(Buffer, MatchedStr, Matches[1]));
continue;
}
//Unknown command
printf("Unknown command: %s", Buffer);
}
return 0;
}

Answer 2

Proper solution for this question requires the following steps:
Parse the original syntax code and create a syntax tree.
That is commonly done with tools like ANTLR.
Go through the syntax tree and either convert it to Java code, or to a Java syntax tree.
Both of those steps have their own complexity, so it would be better to ask separate questions about specific issues you encounter while implementing them.
Strictly speaking you can skip step 2 and generate Java directly when parsing, but unless your language is very simple renaming of Java concepts, you wouldn't be able to do that easily.