The Implementation of the Icon Programming Language

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This book describes the implementation of Icon in detail. It received uniformly good reviews, with comments such as "a classic" and "a fascinating read". Highlights include:

• Icon's virtual machine
• the interpreter for the virtual machine
• generators and goal-directed evaluation
• data representation
• string manipulation
• structures
• memory management

The book describes the implementation of Version 6 of Icon. Most of the material in the book still is relevant. Two technical reports (IPD112 and IPD239) supplement the book to describe subsequent changes. The implementation of Icon's graphics facilities is not described.

Contents

Chapters

Introduction

Icon Language Overview

Organization of the Implementation

Values and Variables

Strings and Csets

Lists

Sets and Tables

The Interpreter

Expression Evaluation

Functions, Procedures, and Co-Expressions

Storage Management

Run-Time Support Operations

Appendices

Data Structures

Virtual machine Instructions

Virtual Machine Code

Adding Functions and Data Types

Projects

Solution to Selected Exercises

References

Index

Publication information: The Implementation of the Icon Programming Language, Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Princeton University Press, 1986. 336 pages, hardbound with dust cover, acid-free paper. This book is no longer in print, but may be available from dealers of used books.