Source:
Proceedings FIRST SIGMINI Symposium on Small Systems, New York, N.Y., Aug 2-3, 1978,
ACM SIGMINI Newsletter 4,4 (Aug 1978), p. 40-44.
Abstract:
This paper reports on the implementation of a powerful data manipulation language
(DML) of a data base system for minicomputers. The technique of language preprocessing
is employed:
The preprocessor translates each DML-statement into an internal form; however, in
addition to a mere translation of statements the preprocessor has the function of
executing so-called "compile-time tasks", i.e. those subtasks of the evaluation of
a DML-statement, which can be done at compile-time already. This processing takes
place in the course of program compilation and thus the size of the run-time module
as well as execution-times can be reduced. The data base system FADABS is used to
illustrate this approach.