Compiler Construction(CS-636)

Gul Sher Ali

MS(CS & Tech.)-China

______________________________________________________
GIMS- PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Gujrat Campus

1
Agenda

Course outline
Marks distribution
Sessional marks elaboration
Assignment/Project sending Submission
Procedure
Overview of the course
Why need to study this course?

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Distribution

Sessional
Assignments = 3
Quizzes = 2 (unannounced + announced)
Project = 3
Exams
Mid term = 12
Final = 20
Practical = 20

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Project

Implementation
Flex Script for analyzer module
Any language for other modules

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Why Take this Course
Reason #1: understand compilers and
languages
understand the code structure
understand language semantics
understand relation between
source code and generated
machine code
become a better programmer

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Why Take this Course

Reason #2: nice balance of theory and

practice
Theory
mathematical models: regular expressions,
automata, grammars, graphs
algorithms that use these models

Practice
Apply theoretical notions to build a real compiler

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Why Take this Course

Reason #3: programming experience

write a large program which manipulates
complex data structures

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Examples

Typical Compilers:
VC, VC++, GCC, JavaC
FORTRAN, Pascal, VB(?)
Translators
Word to PDF
PDF to Postscript

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In This Course

We will study typical compilation:

from programs written in high-level languages
to low-level object code and machine code

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Typical Compilation

High-level source code

Compiler

Low-level machine code

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Source Code
int expr( int n )
{
int d;
d = 4*n*n*(n+1)*(n+1);
return d;
}

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Source Code

Optimized for human readability

Matches human notions of grammar
Uses named constructs such as variables and
procedures

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Assembly Code
.globl _expr
_expr:
imull %eax,%edx
pushl %ebp
movl 8(%ebp),%eax
movl %esp,%ebp
incl %eax
subl $24,%esp
imull %eax,%edx
movl 8(%ebp),%eax
movl %edx,-4(%ebp)
movl %eax,%edx
movl -4(%ebp),%edx
leal 0(,%edx,4),%eax
movl %edx,%eax
movl %eax,%edx
jmp L2
imull 8(%ebp),%edx
.align 4
movl 8(%ebp),%eax
L2:
incl %eax
leave
ret
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Assembly Code

Optimized for hardware

Consists of machine instructions
Uses registers and unnamed memory locations
Much harder to understand by humans

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How to Translate

Correctness:
the generated machine code must execute
precisely the same computation as the source
code

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How to Translate

Is there a unique translation? No!

Is there an algorithm for an “ideal translation”?
No!

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How to Translate

Translation is a complex process

source language and generated code are very
different
Need to structure the translation

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Before we start, Let’s Judge:
What is the output of the following snippets of
code?
1=

2=

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What is a Compiler?

 A compiler is a computer
program that translates a
program in a source language
into an equivalent program in a Source Target
target language. program compiler program

 A source program/code is a
program/code written in the
source language, which is
usually a high-level language. Error
message
 A target program/code is a
program/code written in the
target language, which often is
a machine language or an
intermediate code.
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Process of Compiling Stream of characters
scanner
Stream of tokens
parser
Parse/syntax tree
Semantic analyzer
Annotated tree
Intermediate code generator
Intermediate code
Code optimization
Intermediate code
Code generator
Target code
Code optimization
Target code
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Some Data Structures

Symbol table
Literal table
Parse tree

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Symbol Table

Identifiers are names of variables, constants,

functions, data types, etc.
Store information associated with identifiers
Information associated with different types of identifiers
can be different
Information associated with variables are name, type,
address,size (for array), etc.
Information associated with functions are name,type of return
value, parameters, address, etc.

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Symbol Table (cont’d)

Accessed in every phase of compilers

The scanner, parser, and semantic analyzer put
names of identifiers in symbol table.
The semantic analyzer stores more information (e.g.
data types) in the table.
The intermediate code generator, code optimizer and
code generator use information in symbol table to
generate appropriate code.

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Literal table

Store constants and strings used in program

reduce the memory size by reusing constants and
strings
Can be combined with symbol table

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Parse tree

Dynamically-allocated, pointer-based structure

Information for different data types related to
parse trees need to be stored somewhere.
Nodes are variant records, storing information for
different types of data
Nodes store pointers to information stored in other
data structure, e.g. symbol table

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Scanning

A scanner reads a stream of characters and puts

them together into some meaningful (with
respect to the source language) units called
tokens.
It produces a stream of tokens for the next
phase of compiler.

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Parsing

A parser gets a stream of tokens from the

scanner, and determines if the syntax
(structure) of the program is correct according
to the (context-free) grammar of the source
language.
Then, it produces a data structure, called a
parse tree or an abstract syntax tree, which
describes the syntactic structure of the program.

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Semantic analysis

It gets the parse tree from the parser together

with information about some syntactic elements
It determines if the semantics or meaning of the
program is correct.
This part deals with static semantic.
semantic of programs that can be checked by
reading off from the program only.
syntax of the language which cannot be described in
context-free grammar.
Mostly, a semantic analyzer does type checking.
It modifies the parse tree in order to get that
(static) semantically correct code. 28
Intermediate code generation

An intermediate code generator

takes a parse tree from the semantic analyzer
generates a program in the intermediate language.
In some compilers, a source program is
translated into an intermediate code first and
then the intermediate code is translated into the
target language.
In other compilers, a source program is
translated directly into the target language.

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Intermediate code generation
(cont’d)

Using intermediate code is beneficial when

compilers which translates a single source
language to many target languages are
required.
The front-end of a compiler – scanner to
intermediate code generator – can be used for every
compilers.
Different back-ends – code optimizer and code
generator– is required for each target language.
One of the popular intermediate code is three-
address code. A three-address code instruction
is in the form of x = y op z.
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Code optimization

Replacing an inefficient sequence of instructions

with a better sequence of instructions.
Sometimes called code improvement.
Code optimization can be done:
after semantic analyzing
performed on a parse tree
after intermediate code generation
performed on a intermediate code
 after code generation
performed on a target code

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Code generation

A code generator
takes either an intermediate code or a parse tree
produces a target program.

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Error Handling

Error can be found in every phase of

compilation.
Errors found during compilation are called static (or
compile-time) errors.
Errors found during execution are called dynamic (or
run-time) errors
Compilers need to detect, report, and recover
from error found in source programs
Error handlers are different in different phases
of compiler.
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Cross Compiler

a compiler which generates target code for a

different machine from one on which the
compiler runs.
A host language is a language in which the
compiler is written.
T-diagram S T
H

Cross compilers are used very often in practice.

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Cousins of Compilers

Linkers
Loaders
Interpreters
Assemblers

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