Context-Free Grammars

Lecture 4
Sections 4.1 - 4.2

Rokan Uddin Faruqui

Associate Professor
Dept of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Chittaong, Bangladesh
Email: [email protected]
The Phases of Compilation
Source Program

Scanner (Lexical analysis)

Token
Symbol
Parser (Syntax analysis
Frontend Table
Tree
Semantic analysis
Tree
Intermediate code generation
IR
Machine-independent code optimization
IR
Target code generation
Backend Target Code
Machine-specific code improvement (optional)
Target Code
Rokan Uddin Faruqui CSE, CU Context-Free Grammars 2
Syntax Analysis

position = initial + rate * 60;

id1 = id2 + id3 ∗ num ;

id1 +

id2 *

id3 num

Rokan Uddin Faruqui CSE, CU Context-Free Grammars 3

Outline

1 Context-Free Grammars
Parse Trees
Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

2 Ambiguity

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Context-Free Grammars

Outline

1 Context-Free Grammars
Parse Trees
Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

2 Ambiguity

Rokan Uddin Faruqui CSE, CU Context-Free Grammars 5

Context-Free Grammars

How do we specify language syntax?

Context-Free Grammars,
uses special notation (BNF – Backus Naur Form),
consist of set of rules (productions).
Example:

if (x=2) print("yep"); else print("nope");

Corresponds to a rule:

stm → if (expr) stm else stm

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Context-Free Grammars

Context-Free Grammars

Definition (Context-free grammar)

A context-free grammar, or CFG, consists of set terminals, a set of
nonterminals, a start symbol, and a set of production.
The terminals are the tokens.
The nonterminals will eventually be “replaced” by terminals
(tokens), matching a grammatical pattern.
The start symbol is a nonterminal.
For each production,
The left side, or head, is a nonterminal.
The right side, body, is any string of terminals and nonterminals,
including the empty string.

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Context-Free Grammars

Example
Example (Context-free grammar)
Let the terminals be the tokens

{+, *, (, ), id}.

Let the nonterminals be {E}, which is also the start symbol.

Let the productions be

E→E + E
E→E ∗ E
E→(E)
E → id

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Context-Free Grammars

Example

Context-free grammars
We can use the grammar to derive strings of terminals if we
Begin with the start symbol.
Repeatedly replace a nonterminal with the body of a production of
which that nonterminal is the head, until the resulting string
consists only of terminals.

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Context-Free Grammars

Example

Example (Context-free grammar)

Use the grammar of the example to derive the string

(id + id) * id.

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Context-Free Grammars

Example

Example (Context-free grammar)

We typically group together all the productions for a single
nonterminal.

E → E + E | E ∗ E | ( E ) | id

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Context-Free Grammars Parse Trees

Outline

1 Context-Free Grammars
Parse Trees
Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

2 Ambiguity

Rokan Uddin Faruqui CSE, CU Context-Free Grammars 12

Context-Free Grammars Parse Trees

Parse Trees

Definition (Parse Tree)

A parse tree is a tree structure that represents a derivation.
The root node is the start symbol.
Every interior node is a nonterminal.
Every leaf node is a terminal.
The children of each nonterminal node are the nonterminals and
terminals of the body of a production for that nonterminal.

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Context-Free Grammars Parse Trees

Example

Example (Parse Tree)

Draw a parse tree for the derivation of the string

(id + id) * id.

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Context-Free Grammars Parse Trees

Example

Example (Parse Tree)

E * E

( E ) id

E + E

id id

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Context-Free Grammars Parse Trees

Example

Example (Parse Tree)

The parse tree is not the same as the syntax tree, which we will study
later.

+ id

id id

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Context-Free Grammars Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

Outline

1 Context-Free Grammars
Parse Trees
Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

2 Ambiguity

Rokan Uddin Faruqui CSE, CU Context-Free Grammars 17

Context-Free Grammars Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

Definition (Leftmost derivation)

A leftmost derivation of a string is a derivation in which, at each step,
the leftmost nonterminal is replaced with a string.

Definition (Rightmost derivation)

A rightmost derivation of a string is a derivation in which, at each
step, the rightmost nonterminal is replaced with a string.

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Context-Free Grammars Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

Example

Example (Leftmost and rightmost derivations)

Using the grammar

E → E + E | E ∗ E | ( E ) | id

find leftmost and rightmost derivations of (id+id)*id.

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Ambiguity

Outline

1 Context-Free Grammars
Parse Trees
Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations

2 Ambiguity

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Ambiguity

Ambiguity

Some grammars provide more than one way to derive a string.

For example, id+id*id can be derived in two different ways using
the grammar rules

E → E + E | E ∗ E | ( E ) | id

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Ambiguity

Ambiguity

Definition (Ambiguous grammar)

A grammar is ambiguous if its language contains a string that has
more than one leftmost derivation under that grammar.

Definition (Inherently ambiguous language)

A language is inherently ambiguous if every grammar for that language
is ambiguous.

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Ambiguity

Example

Example (Unambiguous Grammar)

The same language can be derived unambiguously from the following
grammar.

E→E+T |T
T →T *F |F
F → ( E ) | id

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Ambiguity

Example

Example (Unambiguous Grammar)

Using the grammar

E→E+T |T
T →T *F |F
F → ( E ) | id

Find a leftmost derivation of id+id*id.

Find a leftmost derivation of id*id+id.
Draw the parse trees.

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