Abstract
A technique of formal definition, based on relations between "attributes" associated with nonterminal symbols in a context-free grammar, is illustrated by several applications to simple, yet typical, problems. First we define the basic properties of lambda expressions, involving substitution and renaming of bound variables. Then a simple programming language is defined using several different points of view. The emphasis is on "declarative" rather than "imperative" or "algorithmic" forms of definition.
The research reported here was supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (SD 183), and in part by IBM Corporation.
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© 1971 Springer-Verlag
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Knuth, D.E. (1971). Examples of formal semantics. In: Engeler, E. (eds) Symposium on Semantics of Algorithmic Languages. Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol 188. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0059699
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0059699
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