Declarative Name Binding and Scope Rules

In textual software languages, names are used to reference elements like variables, methods, classes, etc. Name resolution analyses these names in order to establish references between de nition and use sites of elements. In this paper, we identify recurring patterns for name bindings in programming languages and introduce a declarative metalanguage for the speci cation of name bindings in terms of namespaces, de nition sites, use sites, and scopes. Based on such declarative name binding speci cations, we provide a language-parametric algorithm for static name resolution during compile-time. We discuss the integration of the algorithm into the Spoofax Language Workbench and show how its results can be employed in semantic editor services like reference resolution, constraint checking, and content completion.