Abstract
Naturalistic programming is a topic of great interest because it allows reducing the gap between the problem domain and the solution domain in the software creation process. SN is a naturalistic language prototype that as a result returns Java bytecode, uses indirect references, allows a higher level of description to de ne procedures, defines nouns that optionally possess a plural form, adjectives that combine with nouns either during definition or instantiation and finally, the prototype presents a limited ability to describe circumstances. The objective of the present work is to apply a reverse engineering process to the SN compiler to know the details of the implementation, identify its characteristics, and document the elements of the language of which there is little or no record. Reverse engineering recovers information about the design of the language and its compiler, which facilitates the understanding of the language. This paper presents the results of the reverse engineering process applied to the SN language compiler. The results include the organization of the SN code by class diagrams and package diagrams; on the other hand, the compilation process of SN programs is detailed. Both results provide insight into the current state of SN and its operation.
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Notes
- 1.
The name SN is inspired by the Latin locution Sicut Naturali which means “as the natural”, but its creator says the correct name is SN.
- 2.
The SN language is focused on describing naturalistic expressions, so it requires a mechanism to de ne formalisms of a particular domain to work properly. The mechanism implemented to describe instructions of a specific domain is an embedded grammar.
- 3.
Plurals are expected to have attributes and verbs, but since their definition depends on the noun they represent, their elements are defined in the noun itself by prefixing the reserved word plural.
- 4.
A literal is a constant value consisting of a sequence of characters. Any statement in SN that defines a constant value - a value that does not change during program execution - is a literal.
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This work is supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT).
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de Jesús González-Palafox, P., Juárez-Martinéz, U., Pulido-Prieto, O., Rodríguez-Mazahua, L., Abud-Figueroa, M.A. (2023). A Look Through the SN Compiler: Reverse Engineering Results. In: Mejia, J., Muñoz, M., Rocha, Á., Hernández-Nava, V. (eds) New Perspectives in Software Engineering. CIMPS 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 576. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20322-0_4
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