6. Compiling Standard ML

The ML in the name Standard ML stands for meta-language. SML was designed as a language for describing languages when it was used as part of the Logic for Computable Functions (LCF) system [9]. Two tools were designed to work with Standard ML for language implementation, ML-lex and ML-yacc. The pattern matching, ease of defining recursive datatypes, the functional nature of the language along with these two tools make Standard ML an excellent language choice for implementing interpreters and compilers.