Papantonakis, A. and King, Peter J.H. (1995) Syntax and semantics of Gql, a graphical query language. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 6 (1), pp. 3-25. ISSN 1045-926X.
Abstract
The problem of formalization for visual languages has been identified as an important one. We present in this paper a formal definition of both the syntax and semantics of Gql, a declarative graphical query language based on the functional data model. In Gql a query is fully and unambiguously represented by a single diagram and the user interaction is kept distinct from the language itself. In our approach for formalization we abstract from the world of graphics and concentrate on a world of sets and functions, called the base structure, which represent the various elements of the language. The syntactical definition of the language is completed by defining a set of rules that a base structure instance must satisfy, in order for it to correspond to a legal Gql query. The semantics of the language is given via a functionally defined, syntax-directed translation from Gql queries (represented as base structure instances) to list comprehensions. Finally, a form of attribute grammar is used in conjunction with the previous definitions for specifying in a single formalism both the syntax and semantics of Gql.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 04 May 2021 16:06 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 12:50 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/44102 |
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