State Diagram Generation using Reference Attibuted Grammars

This paper describes how attribute grammars can be used to generate state diagrams from a program written in a simple transition language and then drawn using a graph drawing tool. We use an extended form of attribute grammars, RAGs, which permits attributes to be references to nodes in the syntax tree. The directed graph defined by the program is constructed in the AST by linking together nodes via reference attributes. It is described how input code for the graph drawing tool can then be produced as a string attribute by traversing this graph.