Editing Abstract syntax tree (section)

== Other usages ==

=== AST differencing ===
AST differencing, or for short tree differencing, consists of computing the list of differences between two ASTs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fluri |first1=Beat |last2=Wursch |first2=Michael |last3=PInzger |first3=Martin |last4=Gall |first4=Harald |date=2007 |title=Change Distilling:Tree Differencing for Fine-Grained Source Code Change Extraction |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tse.2007.70731 |journal=IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering |volume=33 |issue=11 |pages=725–743 |doi=10.1109/tse.2007.70731 |s2cid=13659557 |issn=0098-5589}}</ref> This list of differences is typically called an edit script. The edit script directly refers to the AST of the code. For instance, an edit action may result in the addition of a new AST node representing a function. 

=== Clone detection ===
An AST is a powerful abstraction to perform code [[clone detection]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Koschke |first1=Rainer |last2=Falke |first2=Raimar |last3=Frenzel |first3=Pierre |title=2006 13th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering |chapter=Clone Detection Using Abstract Syntax Suffix Trees |date=2006 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/wcre.2006.18 |pages=253–262 |publisher=IEEE |doi=10.1109/wcre.2006.18|isbn=0-7695-2719-1 |s2cid=6985484 }}</ref>