CS 461

Format
Programming Language
Concepts Exam Time
• Feb 16th, 7-8pm US Eastern Time (60 minutes)
Canvas-based exam
• You will be shown one question at a time
Gary Tan • Can go forward/backward to next/previous question
Computer Science and Engineering • IMPORTANT: you can submit your exam only once
Penn State University – DO NOT PRESS the “SUBMIT QUIZ” button until you are
done

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Format
Next for moving
to the next 60-min exam
question
• Closed book and notes
• Not allowed to communicate with other students
during the exam
• Questions during the exam can be posted to
campuswire
Submit Quiz for – make them viewable only to instructors and TAs
submitting the – phrase the question to make it easily understandable
entire exam (can be Feb 16th class cancelled
done only once)
• Instead, I will move my office hours this week to the
16th class time: 12:20 to 2:20pm

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Types of Questions
True/false questions
Multiple-choice questions
Short answer questions
Versions of homework problems
You will be expected to be able to read and
write small programs
1ST EXAM REVIEW

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1
 Ch1 Introduction Ch2 Grammar
Language = syntax + semantics + philosophy BNF grammar (CFG)
Programming paradigms • Terminals, nonterminals, production rules, start
• Imperative programming, OO, functional symbol
programming, logic programming • Derivation, left-most vs. right-most derivations, parse
tree
Possible kinds of questions
• True/false questions; multiple-choice questions
Ambiguity
• Definition
You do not need to know
• Removing operator ambiguity
• Date when a language was designed
– Adding explicit parenthesis
– Design a new grammar to enforce associativity and
precedence rules
– Ambiguous grammar + informal spec. of associativity and
precedence rules

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Ch2 Grammar Ch2 Lexical and Syntactic Analysis

E-BNF Goal: algorithms for constructing a parse tree

• Writing more concise grammars from input based on grammars
• Alternatives, repetitions, optional parts
Lexical vs. syntactic analysis
• E-BNF is no more expressive than BNF
• Lexical analysis: seq of chars to seq of tokens;
– Can always convert E-BNF to BNF
guided by regular expressions
Possible questions
• syntactic analysis: seq of tokens to parse trees;
• Given a grammar, write derivations and parse trees
guided by CFG
• Conversion from E-BNF to BNF
• Design new BNF grammars
– E.g., given associativity and precedence
• Decide whether a grammar is ambiguous and explain why
• Remove ambiguity

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Ch2 Lexical and Syntactic Analysis Ch2 Lexical and Syntactic Analysis
Regular expressions
• epsilon, a, rs, r|s, r* Possible kinds of questions
• extended regular expressions
– r+, r?, [a-z]
• Write regular expressions for syntax of tokens
FSA • Given a regular expression, develop an FSA/DFA
• states, input alphabet, transition function
• accepting an input • Conversion form extended regular expressions to
• deterministic FSA vs. nondeterministic FSA regular expressions
• Theorem: each RE corresponds to a deterministic FSA
The construction of lexers • Write pseudo code for recursive descent parsers,
• a single FSA for all tokens; nextToken() given a grammar
The construction of parsers: recursive-descent parsing
• Limitation: left recursion
• Left-recursion removal
• Left-recursion removal
Lexer and parser generators

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2
 Ch3 Names, Scopes and Bindings Ch3 Names, Scopes and Bindings
Syntactic issues for Naming Static scoping vs. dynamic scoping
• lexical rules
Binding: compile time vs. runtime • Algorithm based on stack of dictionaries
Variable Possible kinds of questions
• common bindings; naming convention
• l-values vs. r-values
• Scoping
Scope: decides when a name is visible
• nested scopes
• “holes” in scopes
• scope not the same as lifetime
Constructs that can introduce a scope
• Blocks, functions, for-loops, classes, packages (module),
namespace

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Comparing the syntax of E-BNF Comparing the syntax of E-BNF

and Regexps and Regexps
They have similar concepts but with different Regexps
syntax • Alternation: r1 | r2
E-BNF • 0-or-more repetition: r*
• Alternative parts in parentheses and separated with • Optional: r?
vertical bars • …
– <exp> -> <exp> (+ | -) <exp>
• 0-or-more repetitions in curly braces { }
– <num> -> <digit> {<digit>}
• Optional parts in square brackets [ ]
– <if-stmt> -> if <test> then <stmt> [else <stmt>]

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