Decorate and new

Quick examples:

decorate expr with { env = emptyEnv(); }
decorate expr with {}
decorate expr with { inh = value; env = top.env; }
just(new(expr))

See Decorated vs Undecorated for an explanation of what Decorated means.

The following syntax will decorate an undecorated tree:

decorate expression with { inherited attribute = expression; ... }

The initial expression is expected to be undecorated. Each inherited attribute should occur on the type of the initial expression.

Example:

decorate expr with { env = [pair("x", 1), pair("y", 2)]; }

will decorate an undecorated expression with an environment binding two variables.

decorate folder with { input = ["Hello", "world"]; }.output

will decorate a value called folder with the inherited attribute input, then demand the synthesized attribute output from the resulting decorated node.

new is the inverse operation of decorate. It will take an explictly decorated valued (e.g. of type Decorated Expr) and produce the undecorate valued (e.g. of type Expr).

The following syntax will undecorate a decorated tree:

new(expression)

Any nonterminal-typed child of a production has both a decorated and undecorate value, and type inference will automatically select the appropriate one. It’s generally unnecessary to use these expressions on such a child, unless a different decoration of a child is required than the usual one happening in that production. (In such cases, it’s still likely you should use a local instead of decorate.)

Use of decorate and new generally only happens when doing slightly interesting things with let and pattern matching or tree-rewriting. You will often be guided by type errors in such cases.