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RFC 83 - Language-machine for data reconfiguration

  • Status: Unknown
  • Published: 18 December 1970
  • Stream: Legacy
  • Errata: No Errata

Document Information​

  • RFC Number: 83
  • Title: Language-machine for data reconfiguration
  • Authors: R.H. Anderson, E. Harslem, J.F. Heafner (RAND)
  • Date: 18 December 1970
  • Category: Unknown

Abstract​

RFC 83 proposes a different approach to the Form Machine introduced in NWG/RFC #80: a syntax-driven interpreter that operates on a grammar expressed as an ordered set of replacement rules. It describes the Form Machine itself -- forms, rules, and the three term formats -- together with the restrictions and interpretations that govern term functions, and then works through examples of the data reconfigurations that must occur between RAND consoles and the Remote Job System on the UCLA 360/91: literal insertion, deletion, spacing in the output buffer, arbitrary lengths, transposition, string length computation, and the expansion and compression of repeated symbols. It goes on to apply the Form Machine to program protocols, showing how intra- and inter-rule binding can express order-independent and order-dependent protocol dialogs without introducing IF and THEN into the language, and suggests that the Protocol Manager of NWG/RFC #80 can be simplified by using the Form Machine and two system forms specified a priori in the code. The note closes with a request for comment on the language design.

Table of Contents​