Language Implementation Patterns

What You’ll Find in the Patterns

There are 31 patterns in this book. Each one describes a common data structure, algorithm, or strategy you’re likely to find in language applications. Each pattern has four parts:

• Purpose: This section briefly describes what the pattern is for. For example, the purpose of Pattern 21, ​Automatic Type Promotion​ says “…how to automatically and safely promote arithmetic operand types.” It’s a good idea to scan the Purpose section before jumping into a pattern to discover exactly what it’s trying to solve.

• Discussion: This section describes the problem in more detail, explains when to use the pattern, and describes how the pattern works.

• Implementation: Each pattern has a sample implementation in Java (possibly using ...