Abstract:
Language-based tools necessarily translate textual source code into
grammar-based representations. During translation, tools such as
compilers and analyzers are generally free to discard comments and
white space, which have no impact on the code's formal meaning. Tools
that produce transformed source code for human consumption enjoy no
such freedom. Comments and white space are crucial to the
comprehensibility and maintainability of source code and thus to its
ultimate value. However, it is not always practical or desirable for
transformation tools to replicate comments and white space in their
entirety. An analysis of the documentary (as opposed to linguistic)
structure of source code leads to a practical strategy for preserving
its comprehensibility when processed by such tools.
IEEE International Workshop on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, November 10, 2001, Florence, Italy
11 pages (PDF)
A significantly extended version of this paper appeared in Information and Software Technology.