engleski

Source Code Generator Based on a Proprietary Specification Language

An application generator has resulted from the authors' efforts to improve the development of real-world applications. The developed tool is based on a meta-base. The meta-base comprises an extended data model, the target language description and some additional information to support the generation process. The procedures described in a proprietary specification language serve to generate the application over the database modeled in the meta-base. The specification language is based on the source code templates, standard program structures and on special statements for handling of the meta-data. Main ideas and operating principles of the original application generator are exposed. The specification language, its syntax and its basic components are described. The specifications, which are used to generate the SQL statements for the database creation and for the implementation of the integrity rules, are presented. The generator functionality is explained on some simple specification examples where the pseudo-code for the corresponding hypothetical application is generated. Further on, this pseudo-code is used to illustrate how to generate the statements for enforcement of the database integrity and how to generate the statements for procedure chains. Some experience gathered from the generator practical usage is discussed. A list of projects is included, where some complex applications were developed by the aid of the generator. An analysis is presented to show the proportions of the generated source code versus manually written statements.

application generator; specification language; CASE

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