Agile, a structured editor, analyzer, metric evaluator, and transformer for attribute grammars

Abstract

As edit, analyze, measure or transform attribute grammars by hand is an exhaustive task, it would be great if it could be automatized, specially for those who work in Language Engineering. However, currently there are no editors oriented to grammar development that cover all our needs. In this paper we describe the architecture and the development stages of AGile, a structured editor, analyzer, metric calculator and transformer for attribute grammars. It is intended, with this tool, to fill the existing gap. An AnTLR based attribute grammar syntax was used to define the input for this system. As soon as the user types the grammar, the input is parsed and kept in an intermediate structure in memory which holds the important information about the input grammar. This intermediate structure can be used to calculate all the metrics or to transform the input grammar. This system can be a valorous tool for those who need to improve the performance or functionalities of their language processor, speeding up the difficult task of defining and managing a language. Features like highlighting, automatic indentation, on-the-fly error detection, etc., also adds efficiency.