Abstract Syntax = concise representation of program as a data structure

• ignores concrete symbols (whether we use “{” or “begin” for blocks)
• maps easily to Scala's case classes

For our While language:

program ::= statement
statement ::= print | read | assign | if | while | block
print ::= string var
assign ::= var expr
if ::= exp statement (statement)?
while ::= expr statement
block ::= statement*
expr ::= var | literal | expr binOp expr | unOp expr

The first programming exercise uses this language.

Mapping abstract syntax to Scala:

• one class for each syntactic category (program,statement,read,write,…)
• for class with multiple alternatives:
  • make class abstract
  • create a subclass for each alternative
• each component of the alternative becomes an argument (field) of the case class

Next: specify concrete textual representation

• tokens (“while”, “if”, “==”, “<”, …)
• concrete syntax (connects these tokens and describes valid grammar)