softlab@unc.UUCP (SoftLab Distribution) (12/16/85)
RELEASE OF THE IDL TOOLKIT
Richard Snodgrass
Department of Computer Science
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
A collection of tools supporting the Interface Descrip-
tion Language (IDL) is now available for the Vax running
under Berkeley UNIX 4.2BSD and the Sun workstation running
under Sun UNIX 2.0. These tools automate the production of
a portion of compilers and other programming environment
components; in this way they are similar to lex and yacc.
The tools have been used to construct several compilers here
at UNC and at Columbia University and Ohio State University.
IDL is a notation for describing abstract data struc-
tures; these specifications can be translated into readers
and writers, as well an internal manipulation routines.
Tools in a software system often pass around complex struc-
tures; IDL allows much of the mundane code that involve
these structures to be automatically generated (in one typi-
cal example, 14% of the source was generated by lex and
yacc; another 37% was generated by the IDL toolkit). The
best known IDL specification is Diana, which has become a de
facto standard intermediate representation of Ada programs.
IDL was designed by John Nestor, William Wulf, and David
Lamb, and is described in
Nestor, J.R., W.A. Wulf, and D.A. Lamb, Interface
Description Language: Formal Description, Revision
2.0, Technical Report, Computer Science Department,
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, June
1982.
Lamb, D.A., Sharing Intermediate Representations:
The Interface Description Language, Ph.D. Disserta-
tion, Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA, May 1983.
Warren, W.B., J. Kickenson, and R. Snodgrass, A
Tutorial Introduction to Using IDL, SoftLab
Document 1, Computer Science Department, University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, November, 1985.
The IDL Toolkit contains several tools for manipulating
IDL structure specifications and instances of these struc-
tures. The tools include a compiler for IDL which produces C
code for the readers and writers, a graphical printer of IDL
instances generating output for lineprinters and the Imagen
laser printer, a generic instance reader, a specification
expander, an instance formatter, and a simple cross
referencer. The tools have been in use since May, 1985, are
robust and are well documented.
The distribution consists of a 1600 bpi magnetic tape
containing all source code, seven manuals totalling almost
300 pages, and installation instructions. The source is
approximately 60,000 lines, or 2 Mbytes; the object code is
approximately .7 Mbytes. The toolkit is available to educa-
tional institutions for a distribution cost of $300; others
should make arrangements with Richard Snodgrass, phone (919)
962-4530. To request a copy of the tutorial and a distribu-
tion agreement, please communicate your name, affilication
and post office address to
Donna Boggs
Snail Mail: SoftLab Distribution Coordinator
Department of Computer Science
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Phone: (919) 962-7330
Electronic Mail: softlab@unc (csnet)
softlab.unc@CSNET-RELAY (ARPAnet)