Implementation of a compiler for a semantic data model: Experiences with taxis

Abstract

The features of a compiler for the Taxis design language are described and discussed. Taxis offers an entity-based framework for designing interactive information systems and supports generalisation, classification and aggregation as abstraction mechanisms. Its features include multiple inheritance of attributes, isA hierarchies of transactions, metaclasses, typed attributes, a procedural exception-handling mechanism and an iteration construct based on the abstraction mechanisms supported Developing a compiler for the language involved dealing with the problems of efficiently representing and accessing a large collection of entities, performing (static) type checking and representing isA hierarchies of transactions.