On a uniform formal description of data structures

Abstract

The paper gives a semantic for data structures defining a model in which both types and objects are based on certain right-linear grammars. The advantage of the proposed semantic is the uniformity with which the selecting and accessing operations are explained respectively. The distinction between accessing variables or constants is consistently based on a property of the corresponding selectors. Usual difficulties in distinguishing between constant and variable objects in programming languages can thus be avoided. Another advantage is that selective assignments to components of structures are contained in the model in a very natural way.