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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. 35 mm slides or 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Accessing theUMI World’s Information since 1938 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA Order Number 8804059 Braced languages and a model of translation for context-free strings: Theory and practice Kaelbling, Michael John, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1987 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or pages _____ 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print ______ 3. Photographs with dark background _____ 4. Illustrations are poor copy ______ 5. 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Other______________________________________________________________________ UMI BRACED LANGUAGES AND A MODEL OF TRANSLATION FOR CONTEXT-FREE STRINGS: THEORY AND PRACTICE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University by Michael John Kaelbling, B.S., M.S. The Ohio State University 1987 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Sandra A. Mamrak / 7 ' 7/7 Thomas C. Bylander Adviser Department of Computer Karsten Schwan and Information Science in memoriam Rudolf Kaelbling, M.Sc., M.D. 1928-1976 ' ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I must thank Ann E. Kelley Sobel for her love and support. She showed remarkable patience and endurance while I worked to complete this dissertation. Having closed this chapter of my life, I dedicate the remainder to her, its most important person. I would like to thank my adviser, Sandra Mamrak. I am grateful for the time and guidance she has given me throughout my studies. I would also like to thank the other members of my reading committee: Karsten Schwan and Tom Bylander. They all generously contributed their time and effort to improve this dissertation. I thank my family and friends for their support. Among the graduate students who helped me and brightened my time are, in no particular order: Dave Ogle, Prabha Gopinath, Ben Blake, Con O’Connell, Klaus Buchenrieder, Gregor Taulbee, Mike Weintraub and the members of the Desperanto and Chameleon research projects, especially Charles Nicholas. My research was supported in part by a research grant from the Applied Information Technologies Research Center based in Columbus, Ohio, and by an equipment grant from the Xerox Corporation. VITA 21 Dec. 1957 ...........................................Born - Columbus, Ohio 1979 .............................................................B.S., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1980-1981 .................................................. Universitaet Ulm, Ulm, West Germany 1981-1982 .................................................. Non-teaching faculty (Programmer/Analyst) in the Dept, of Microbiology at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1982-1983 .................................................. Full-time graduate student: Graduate Teaching Associate 1983 .............................................................M.S., The Ohio State ' University, Columbus, Ohio 1983-present ...........................................Full-time graduate student: Graduate Teaching Associate and Graduate Research Associate Publications Mamrak, S.A., Kaelbling, M.J., Nicholas, C.K.. Share. M. A Software Architecture for Supporting the Exchange of Electronic Manuscripts. Communications of the A C M 30(5):408-414. May. 1987. Schwan, K., Kaelbling, M.J., Ramnath, R. A Testbed for High-Performance Parallel Software. Jan. 1985. 34pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-85-5). Mamrak, S.A., Kaelbling, M.J., Nicholas, C.K. An Approach to the Solution of Data Conversion Problems in Heterogeneous Networks. Aug. 1983. 35pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-83-4). Fields of Study Major Field: Computer and Information Sciences Studies in: Heterogeneous Distributed Systems, with Prof. S. Mamrak Homogeneous Distributed Systems, with Prof. K. Schwan Software Environments, with Prof. J. Ramanathan TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................... iii VITA .................................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. x LIST OF SYMBOLS .............................................................................................. xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................ xii LIST OF NOMENCLATURE ............................................................................ xiii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 1. The Problem ................................................................................... 2 2. Our Specific Solution ................................................................. 3 3. Related Work .................................................................................... 4 4. Main Contributions ...................................................................... 6 5. Overview and Organization ........................................................ 8 II. CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION OF THE WORK ................. 12 1. The Chameleon Project ........................................................... 14 1. The Observed Problem .................................................... 14 2. The Intuitive Notion of Translation ........................... 16 3. The Standard-Form Approach ...................................... 17 4. The Chameleon Goals ....................................................... 19 1. Domain Independence ............................................. 19 2. Support of the Build Phase ................................... 20 3. Support of the Use Phase ...................................... 21 4. Hiding Formalism .................................................... 23 5. Prototype Systems .............................................................. 23 2. The Current Chameleon System ............................................ 24 I. The Basic Tool Set ........................................................... 24 vii 1. The SGML Scanner/Grammar Generator . 25 2. The Translator Writer ............................................. 25 3. The Translator Inverter .......................................... 26 4. The Translator Generator ...................................... 27 5. The Translation-up User Interface ..................... 28 2. Two Auxiliary Tool Developments ............................... 29 1. A Generator for Oracular Parsers ..................... 29 2. A Generator for Powerful Scanners ................. 30 3. Related Work ..................................................................................... 31 III. THE STANDARD-FORM MODEL .................................................. 34 1. Preliminaries ...................................................................................... 35 1. Notation ...................................................................................... 35 2. Regular Sets, Languages, and Expressions .............. 36 3. Context-free Grammars and Languages ...................... 37 2. Generalized Parenthesis Grammars and Languages . 38 3. Braced Languages ........................................................................... 39 1. The Standard Definition ...................................................... 40 2. An Alternate Definition ..................................................... 41 4. The Definition of Our Standard-Form Model .................. 46 5. Related Work ....................................................................................