Work

From Lisp S-expressions to Java source code

Year: 2008

Type: article

Abstract: The syntax of Lisp languages is based on S-expressions, an extremely simple form of structured data representation that is nevertheless fundamental to the development of Lisp syntactic extensions. By adopting a more conventional syntax, the Java language placed itself in a difficult position in regard to user-defined syntax extensions. In spite of the many efforts to provide mechanisms for such extensions, they continue to be more difficult to use than S-expression- based ones. In this paper, we will describe the use of the S-expression syntax in a Java code generation environment. By providing an S-expression based program representation for Java source code, we are able to reuse and extend Lisp macro-expansion techniques to significantly simplify the construction of Java programs. .

Source: Computer Science and Information Systems

DOI: 10.2298/csis0802019l

Author: António Leitão

Institutions: Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores Investigação e Desenvolvimento, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa

Language: English

Topic: Logic, programming, and type systems

Subfield: Software

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

OpenAlex ID: W1976651261

FWCI: 1.324

Cites: 20

Cited by: 3

Related to: 10