Compiler Compiler Facilities in Atlas Autocode

As we have demonstrated in another paper in this issue (see page 345), the Compiler Compiler has proven itself to be a very useful tool in writing compilers. As we came to use it for more general data-processing tasks, the lack of any comprehensive arithmetic facilities became a limitation. Rather than add these to the Compiler Compiler, we chose to add the phrase structure features of the Compiler Compiler to an algebraic compiler. This is Atlas Autocode (AA), which has been described elsewhere (Brooker, Rohl and Clark, 1966), but which can be thought of as a dialect of ALGOL. So far we have implemented a minimum of facilities, and we may be forced to add others in the light of experience. It is the broad outlines, however, which are of interest. In this description we assume a knowledge of the concepts discussed in "Experience with the Compiler Compiler" (see page 345).