Extending Languages by Leveraging Compilers: from Modelica to Optimica

In English Combining attribute grammars with object-oriented programming supports a new kind of declarative programming, allowing compilers to be built in a highly extensible manner. By leveraging a base compiler, extended languages can be supported at a relatively low cost. Recent work shows the applicability of the technique to general-purpose programming languages like Java. In this article, we illustrate the approach using a case study for domain-specific languages: An extensible compiler was built for the physical systems modeling language Modelica, and leveraged to support a new extended language, Optimica.