About Us

Compilerware

We are working with LR automata theory, LR grammars and LR parsers, which are based on LR(k) theory invented by Donald Knuth in 1965, made practical by Frank DeRemer in 1969, and made more elegant by David Pager in 1973.  We use this theoretical foundation to create language and compiler development tools for software engineers. 

• 1. the fastest lexers, parsers and compilers.
• 2. the smallest lexers and parsers without compromising #1 too much.
• 3. the most readable language-independent grammar notations.
• 4. the most flexible tools, able to generate code in any programming language.
• 5. the best error messages for the grammar writer and end user of your software.

• Efficient Computation Of LALR(1) Look-Ahead Sets, by DeRemer and Pennello [1982]
• Optimization Of Parser Tables For Portable Compilers, by Dencker, Durre and Heuft [1984]
• A Human Engineered Variant Of BNF, by Ledgard [1980]
• A Translational BNF Grammar Notation (TBNF), by Mann [2006]

STAR

STAR is an acronym for State-Transition-ARrays.  STAR's are created by taking the original state-transition matrix, converting it into a compressed-matrix, and doing further conversion into a base-plus-displacement type of array.  STAR technology is incorporated into our products: LRSTAR and DFASTAR.  STAR's provide the fastest known method of pattern recognition.  Some parser algorithms are based on other concepts, such as: linear search, binary search, or hashing techniques.  But none of these other techniques equals the speed of STAR's. 

TBNF

TBNF is an acronym for Translational BNF.  We invented TBNF grammar notation because BNF and EBNF notations only define the syntax of a language.  TBNF can also define the structure of the abstract-syntax tree (AST) and the intermediate-code to be generated from traversing the AST.  TBNF also provides a mechanism for handling the 'typedef' problem in the C language.  See the TBNF Paper for more information.