Abstract syntax tree
In computer science, an abstract syntax tree (AST), or just syntax tree, is a tree representation of the syntax of some source code (that has been written in a programming language). Each node of the tree denotes a construct occurring in the source code. The tree is abstract in the sense that it may not represent some constructs that appear in the original source. For instance, the classic example of such an omission is grouping parentheses, since in an AST the grouping of operands is implicit in the tree structure.
An AST is often built by a parser as part of the processing of compiling source code. Once built, additional information is added to the AST by subsequent processing, e.g., semantic analysis.
See also
- Abstract semantic graph (ASG)
- Concrete syntax tree
- Document Object Model (DOM)
- Semantic resolution tree (RST)
- Shunting yard algorithm
- Symbol table
- TreeDL
References
This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.
External links
- AST View, an Eclipse plugin to visualize a Java abstract syntax tree
- Good information about the Eclipse AST and Java Code Manipulation
- Paper "Abstract Syntax Tree Implementation Idioms" by Joel Jones (overview of AST implementation in various language families)
- Paper "Abstract Syntax Tree Design" by Nicola Howarth (note that this merely presents the design of *one particular* project's AST, and is not generally informative)
- Paper "Understanding source code evolution using abstract syntax tree matching" by Iulian Neamtiu, Jeffrey S. Foster and Michael Hicks
- Paper "Change Distilling: Tree Differencing for Fine-Grained Source Code Change Extraction" by Beat Fluri, Michael Würsch, Martin Pinzger, and Harald C. Gall.
- Diploma thesis "Improving Abstract Syntax Tree based Source Code Change Detection" by Michael Würsch
- Article "Thoughts on the Visual C++ Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)" by Jason Lucas
- Tutorial "Abstract Syntax Tree Metamodel Standard"
- PMD uses AST representation to control code source quality
- CAST representation
- Abstract Syntax Tree Unparsing
This computer science-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.Why are we here?
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
This page is cache of Wikipedia. History