Generating action compilers by partial evaluation

Compiler generation based on Mosses ’ action semantics has been studied by Brown, Moura, and Watt, and also by the second author. The core of each of their systems is a handwritten action compiler, producing either C or machine code. We have obtained an action compiler in a much simpler way: by partial evaluation of an action interpreter. Even though our compiler produces Scheme code, the code runs as fast as that produced by the previous action compilers.