ATerms for manipulation and exchange of structured data: It's all about sharing

  • Authors:
  • Mark G. J. van den Brand;Paul Klint

  • Affiliations:
  • Technical University Eindhoven, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, The Netherlands;Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Software Engineering Department, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The ...

  • Venue:
  • Information and Software Technology
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Some data types are so simple that they tend to be reimplemented over and over again. This is certainly true for terms, tree-like data structures that can represent prefix formulae, syntax trees, intermediate code, and more. We first describe the motivation to introduce Annotated Terms (ATerms): unifying several term formats, optimizing storage requirements by introducing maximal subterm sharing, and providing a language-neutral exchange format. Next, we present a brief overview of the ATerm technology itself and of its wide range of applications. A discussion of competing technologies and the future of ATerms concludes the paper.