Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Information Technology

Department

Computer & Information Science

College

College of Engineering & Applied Science

Committee Chair

Dr. Larry Morrell

Second Committee Member

Dr. Jerry Wood

Abstract

This thesis builds a syntax macro facility for an extensible interpreter, which enables the developer to extend the base language at run time, without knowing the details of the interpreter. In the enhanced extensible interpreter, each grammar rule is represented by a distinct class that inherits from Instruction class, which contains all the information necessary for scanning, parsing, and interpreting the corresponding construct. The macro facility is implemented by a special class Macro, which also inherits from Instruction class. Each macro rule is associated with a unique Macro instance. With the new extensible interpreter strategy, the syntax macro facility does not require special format for macro invocation. The macro grammar rule and the base grammar rule share similar syntax, which means that there is no difference between extended language and base language from the user’s view. The process of macro invocation is almost the same as a base instruction invocation, except that expansion occurs before evaluation.

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