Chapter - Five

Symbol table and Type Checking

 Basic Topics of Chapter: 5

 What is Symbol Tables?

 Uses of Symbol Table
 Hash tables
 Implementing symbol table
 Type checking
 Type Systems
 Type conversions
 What is Symbol Table ?
 A symbol table is a data structure used by a compiler to store information about the
various symbols used in the source code.
 It is used to store information about the occurrence of various variables such as
variable names, function names, objects, classes, and other identifiers.
• Symbol table used by both Analysis phases and Synthesis phases.
• Information about the name is entered into the symbol table during lexical and
syntactic analysis.
• The symbol table is used by the compiler during the syntax analysis phase to check
for errors such as duplicate declarations, undefined symbols, and type mismatches.
 What is Symbol Table ? ….

 As each symbol is encountered in the source code, information about that symbol

is added to the symbol table.

 Thus, the information collected about the name includes the string of characters by

which it is denoted,

 its type (e.g. Integer, real, string), its form (e.g. simple variable a structure), its

location in memory and other attributes depending on the language .

 Each entry in the symbol table is a pair of the form (name and information)
Usage of Symbol Table by various phases of compiler
 Why symbol table?

 The symbol table used for the following purpose:

 It is used to store the name of all entities in a structured form at one place.
 It is used to verify if a variable has been declared.
 It is used to determine the scope of a name.
 It is used to implement type checking by verifying assignments and expressions
in the source code is semantically correct or not.
 The Contents of a Symbol Table

 A symbol table is simply a table which can be either linear or a hash table.

 It maintains an entry for each name in the following format:

 For example, if a symbol table has to store information about the following variable

declaration:

 then it should store the entry such as:

 The attribute clause contains the entries related to the name.

 Implementation of Symbol Table

 If a compiler is to handle a small amount of data, then the symbol table can be
implemented as an unordered list,
 which is easy to code, but it is only suitable for small tables only.

 A symbol table can be implemented in one of the following ways:

 Linear sorted or unsorted list

 Binary Search Tree

 Hash table

 Among all, symbol tables are mostly implemented as hash tables, where the source
code symbol itself is treated as a key for the hash function and the return value is the
information about the symbol.
 Symbol Table Operations
 A symbol table, either linear or hash, should provide the following two main
operations:
a. insert (name) makes an entry for this name
b. lookup (name) finds the relevant occurrence of the name by searching the table
 Lookups occur a lot more often than insert
 a. Insert operation
 This operation is more frequently used by analysis phase,
 i.e., the first half of the compiler where tokens are identified and names are stored in the table.
 This operation is used to add information in the symbol table about unique names occurring in
the source code.
 The format or structure in which the names are stored depends upon the compiler in hand.
 An attribute for a symbol in the source code is the information associated with that symbol.

 This information contains the value, state, scope, and type about the symbol.

 The insert function takes the symbol and its attributes as arguments and stores the information in
the symbol table.
 b. Lookup operation
 Lookup operation is used to search a name in the symbol table to determine:
 if the symbol exists in the table.
 if it is declared before it is being used.
 Check whether the name is used in the scope.
 if the symbol is initialized.
 if the symbol declared multiple times.

 The format of lookup function varies according to the programming language.

 The basic format should match the following:
 This method returns 0 zero if the symbol does not exist in the symbol table.
 If the symbol exists in the symbol table, it returns its attributes stored in the table.
 Scope Management
 A compiler maintains two types of symbol tables:
 a global symbol table which can be accessed by all the procedures and
 scope symbol tables that are created for each scope in the program.

 The global symbol table contains names for one global variable intvalue and two
procedure names.
 which should be available to all the child nodes shown above.
 The names mentioned in the pro_one symbol table and all its child tables are not
available for pro_two symbols and its child tables.
 To determine the scope of a name, symbol tables are arranged in hierarchical
structure as shown in the example below:
Example
 Example…
 The above program can be represented in a hierarchical structure of symbol tables:
 Con’t…

 This symbol table data structure hierarchy is stored in the semantic analyzer and

whenever a name needs to be searched in a symbol table, it is searched using the

following algorithm:

 first a symbol will be searched in the current scope,

 i.e. current symbol table.

 if a name is found, then search is completed,

 else it will be searched in the parent symbol table until, either the name is found or
global symbol table has been searched for the name.
 Type Checking in Compiler
 Type checking in compilers is the process of ensuring that all expressions in a
program are compatible with their respective type definitions.
 It allows the programmer to limit what types may be used in certain circumstances
and assigns types to values.
 Much of what we do in the semantic analysis phase is type checking
 The main goal of type checking is:
 check that the source program should follow the syntactic and semantic
conventions of the source language.
 to check whether the source program is maintained correctly or not.
 to check the correctness and data type assignments and type-casting of the data
types, whether it is syntactically correct or not before their execution.
 to check the correctness of the program before its execution.
 it checks the type rules of the language.
 Also determines whether these values are used appropriately or not.
 Cont’d…
• Type checking involves comparing the type of an expression with the expected type, and ensuring that

they are compatible.

• For example, adding two values of different types (such as a string and a number) would result in a
type error.

• In some languages, type inference can help to reduce the amount of explicit type annotations that are

required.

• In these cases, the compiler can deduce the type of an expression based on its context.

• Once the type checking is complete, the compiler can generate code that is optimized for the specific

types that are used in the program.

• This can lead to faster and more efficient code.

• Type checking is an important part of the compiler optimization process.

 Conversion

• Conversion from one type to another type is known as implicit if it is to be

done automatically by the compiler.
• Implicit type conversions are also called Coercion and coercion is limited in many
languages.
• Example: An integer may be converted to a real but real is not converted to an integer.
• Conversion is said to be Explicit if the programmer writes something to do the Conversion.
• Tasks:
– has to allow “Indexing is only on an array”

– has to check the range of data types used

– INTEGER (int) has a range of -32,768 to +32767

– FLOAT has a range of 1.2E-38 to 3.4E+38.
 How to design a Type Checker?

 When designing a type checker for a compiler, here’s the process:

 Identify the types that are available in the language

 Identify the language constructs that have types associated with them.

 Identify the semantic rules for the language

 A language is considered strongly- typed if each and every type error is detected during

compilation.
 Type Checking Preventions

 Application of a function to wrong number of arguments

 Application of integer functions to floats

 Use of undeclared variables in expressions

 Functions that do not return values,

 Division by zero

 Array indices out of bounds.

 Two Types of Type Checking

1) Static Type Checking

2) Dynamic Type Checking

 Static Type Checking

 Static type checking is defined as type checking performed at compile-time.

 Check the correctness of the program before it execution.

 Need to verify that the source program follows the syntactic and semantic conventions

 Obtained via declarations and stored in a master symbol table.

 After this information is collected, the types involved in each operation are checked.

 Languages like Pascal and C have static type checking.

• Static Type-Checking is also used to determine the amount of memory needed to store the

variable.
 Example of Static Type Checking
4 types of static type checking
1- Type Check: operator applied to an incompatible operand.
e.g. error if array variable is added with function variable: 2+2.5 = Error
2- Flow of Control: statements that results in a branch need to be terminated
correctly. While() {
Breack;
} error
3- Uniqueness Check: Object must be defined exactly once for some scenarios
int a = 2; a should be unique
4.Name Related Check: Sometimes the same name must appear two or more time
e.g. main() {
add (x,y);
}
add()
 Example: #2

 For example, if a and b are of type int and we assign very large values to
them, a * b may not be in the acceptable range of int’s, or an attempt to
compute the ratio between two integers may raise a division by zero.
 These kinds of type errors usually cannot be detected at compiler time.
 Dynamic Type Checking
 Dynamic Type Checking is defined as the type checking being done at run time.
 For example, a variable of type double would contain both the
actual double value and some kind of tag indicating "double type".
 Common dynamically typed languages are : JavaScript, Php and Python etc.
 Most of the languages used both.
 Note: Static or Dynamic doesn’t mean Weak or strong
 Dynamic typing is more flexible.
 A static type system always restricts what can be conveniently expressed.
 Dynamic typing results in more compact programs since it is more flexible and does
not require types to be spelled out.
 Programming with a static type system often requires more design and
implementation effort.
 Figure 5.1: Position of type checker

 Input and output of type checker is verify syntax tree

 This carried out in semantic phase
 Type checking information added with the semantic rules.
 Basic type checker is performed
 Type System

 Type system is a collection of rules applied on Type expression

 Designing of type checker vary from language to language
E.G : 2+2 = 4
 Each expression has a type associated
 Basic types: Boolean, Int , Char

 Constructed types : Pointer, Array , Structures

 Type Expression

 The type of a language construct is denoted by a type expression.

• A type expression can be:

– A basic type (also called primitive types)

• a primitive data type such as integer, real, char, boolean, …

– A type name

• a name can be used to denote a type expression.

Type checking Expression
 Questions

1. Explain the contents of Symbol Table.

2. Describe the data structures for Symbol table.

3. Why we need type checking in compiler?

End of chapter-5!