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International Conference on Compiler Construction

CC 2015: Compiler Construction pp 31–48Cite as

A Refactoring Library for Scala Compiler Extensions

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNTCS,volume 9031)

Abstract

Compiler plugins enable languages to be extended with new functionality by adding compiler passes that perform additional static checking, code generation, or code transformations. However, compiler plugins are often difficult to build. A plugin can perform arbitrary code transformations, easily allowing a developer to generate incorrect code. Moreover, the base compiler assumes many complex, sometimes undocumented invariants, requiring plugin developers to acquire intimate knowledge of the design and implementation of the compiler. To address these issues in the context of the Scala compiler plugin framework, we introduce Piuma. Piuma is a library that provides, first, an API to perform many common refactoring tasks needed by plugin writers, and, second, a DSL to eliminate much of the boilerplate code required for plugin development. We demonstrate the usefulness of our library by implementing five diverse compiler plugins. We show that, using Piuma, plugins require less code and are easier to understand than plugins developed using the base Scala compiler plugin API.

Keywords

  • Scala
  • compiler extensions
  • refactoring

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Informatics, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland

    Amanj Sherwany, Nosheen Zaza & Nathaniel Nystrom

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  1. Amanj Sherwany
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  2. Nosheen Zaza
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  3. Nathaniel Nystrom
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Correspondence to Amanj Sherwany .

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  1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Björn Franke

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Sherwany, A., Zaza, N., Nystrom, N. (2015). A Refactoring Library for Scala Compiler Extensions. In: Franke, B. (eds) Compiler Construction. CC 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9031. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46663-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46663-6_2

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