Optimization of declarative queries

A method comprising:

• identifying one or more iterator-based expressions in a source code file by a computing device, wherein an iterator is an abstraction between an internal representation of a data structure and one or more functions that operate on the data structure, and an iterator-based expression is an expression that uses an iterator;
• for each identified iterator-based expression:
• replacing one or more operators in the iterator-based expression with one or more symbols corresponding to an operator class associated with each of the one or more operators by the computing device;
• generating a string comprising the iterator-based expression with the replaced one or more operators by the computing device;
• processing the generated string using an automaton to generate one or more non-iterator-based expressions that are functionally equivalent to the iterator-based expression by the computing device;
• and
• replacing the iterator-based expression in the source code file with the generated one or more non-iterator-based expressions by the computing device;
• and
• compiling the source code file to generate a computer executable program by the computing device.

A system comprising:

• at least one computing device;
• memory;
• a programming application to generate a source code file that comprises at least one iterator-based expression, wherein an iterator is an abstraction between internal representation of a data structure and one or more functions that operate on the data structure, and an iterator-based expression is an expression that uses an iterator;
• an optimizer to:
• for each iterator-based expression:
• replace one or more operators in the iterator-based expression with one or more symbols corresponding to an operator class associated with each of the one or more operators;
• generate a string comprising the iterator-based expression with the replaced one or more operators;
• and
• process the generated string to generate one or more non-iterator-based expressions that are functionally equivalent to the iterator-based expression;
• and
• associate the generated one or more non-iterator-based expressions with the source code file;
• and
• a compiler to compile the source code file and the associated one or more non-iterator-based expressions to generate a computer executable program.