A Small Contribution to Editing with a Syntax Directed Editor

Abstract

The simple design of a syntax directed editor has made them a popular research topic over the last few years; however, in practice little development time is spent in actually entering program text. Most of the effort is devoted to program maintenance. This means that the editor has to be able to handle changes easily a task that most syntax editors handle poorly. This paper describes a syntax editor and outlines the features that make editing such programs practical. It includes a bottom up parser that is used in a variety of ways within the editor.