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CSC338-CS224: Compiler design and

implementation

Dr. Mohamed Ben Othman

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Goals:
- Compilers are used everyday in most computers.

- Allow students to implement big programming

projects.

- Parts of most projects (specially those containing

command language) can be built in the same way
compilers are built.
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Introduction

1. Terminology

2. Compilers implementation languages

3. Compiler structure

4. Example
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Terminology

- Compilers: translate programs written in high level

languages. The entire program has to be translated
before execution (compared to a book translation).
- Interpreters: translate statement by statement (or line
by line) and then this statement is given to the CPU to
be executed before the next statement in being
translated (compared to a man translator).
- High Level Language
- Source Language
- Source Code
- Implementation language
- Target machine: the machine to which the translation
will be done.
C Program C Compiler 8086 Machine Code
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How to choose the compiler implementation
language
- The first compiler was written in assembly
language
- The compiler of Fortran77 programming
language is Pascal.
- It is preferable to write the compiler in the
source language from which it will translate to
machine language.
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Translation operation
Source Code Compiler Object Code Linker Executable Code

The are some compilers do not respect this pattern.

- Load-and-go Compilers: gives programs ready for
execution.
- Cross-language compilers: compilers between
high level languages.
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Compiler structure
❑Compiler is divided into two parts: Front End
and Back End.
❑The Front End translates a program from
source language to an intermediate
language.
❑The back End translates from the
intermediate language to the machine
language.

Source Front Intermediate Back Machine

Code End Object Code End Code
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The Front End

Source Intermediate
Program code

Intermediate code
Lexical analyzer
generator

Tokens
Abstract
Syntax tree

Semantic analyzer Parse tree Syntactic analyzer

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The Back End

Intermediate
code

Machine Independent optimizer

Optimized
Intermediate
Optimized
code
Object code

Object code Generator Object code Machine dependent optimizer

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Lexical analysis
❑ The lexical analyzer reads the input program
as a character stream and produces a stream
of lexemes (or token strings) as output.
❑The lexical analyzer reads the input program
character by character until it reads a word
(symbol).
❑The lexical analyzer searches the current
work in a table (called symbol table) and adds
it if not found. The lexical analyzer produces
an output for each symbol called token.
Tokens are generally integer numbers.
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Syntactic Analysis
❑Syntactic Analyzer (or parser): takes as input
the Token stream produced by the lexical
analyzer.

❑The parser produces a Parse Tree

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Semantic Analysis
❑The semantic analyzer determines if the
meaning is respected in the user program.
❑The syntax rules may be respected without
respecting the meaning.
❑Semantic analysis is mainly to be sure that
data types are used properly.
❑Semantic analysis is part of syntactic
analysis.
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Detecting errors in the source program

❑In all phases above the main goal is to determine if the

program source respects the source language rules.
❑Example:
for (int i $ 1; i<n; i++) x++;
This error may be detected at lexical analysis

if x > N Y -= 3 else Y += 3;
This is a syntax error
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Intermediate code generation

❑The intermediate code generator produces a code

that is not related to the target machine. The
intermediate code has to be very close to the and
very easy to translate to machine language.
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Object Code
❑The target code is the machine code.

❑The machine code generation is not the same as

the intermediate code generation.

❑A assembly language code generation may be

done in the same time
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Lexical analysis example: (Pascal program)

PROGRAM AverageNumbers(Input, Output);
CONST Amount = 3;
VAR Average : Real;
x : ARRAY[1..Amount] OF Integer;
i, Sum : Integer;
BEGIN
x[1]:=3;
x[2]:=6;
x[3]:=10;
Sum := 0;
FOR i := 1 TO Amount DO Sum := Sum +
x[i];
Average := Sum/Amount
END. { AverageNumbers }
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Lexical analysis result

PROGRAM ID (ID , ID );
CONST ID = NUMLITERAL;
VAR ID : ID ;
ID : ARRAY[1 .. ID ] OF ID ;
ID, ID : ID ;
BEGIN
and so on
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Miscellaneous
❑Symbol Table : contains all keywords and
symbols.
❑Symbol Table Handler: manages the symbol table.
❑Error Handling : gives a clear description of
errors.
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Resume:

Source Program

Lexical analysis

Syntax analysis

Symbol table Inter. code generation Error handling

code optimization

code generation

Target program