8/5/2020

Compiler Construction
[SWE-310]
Introduction

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Overview

 Programming languages are notations for describing

computations to people and to machines.
 The world as we know it depends on programming
languages, because all the software running on all
the computers was written in some programming
language.
 But, before a program can be run, it must first be
translated into a form in which it can be executed
by a computer.

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Overview
 The software systems that do this translation are called
Language Processing Systems (Compilers, Interpreters and
Assemblers etc.) or Translators and compiler is one of them.
 This course is about how to design and implement compilers.
 A few basic ideas can be used to construct translators for a
wide variety of languages and machines.
 Besides compilers, the principles and techniques for compiler
design are applicable to so many other domains that they are
likely to be reused many times in the career of a computer
scientist.
 The study of compiler writing touches upon programming
languages, machine architecture, language theory, algorithms,
and software engineering.

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Overview

 This preliminary chapter is about:

• Introduction of different forms of language
translators
• A high level overview of the structure of a
typical compiler
• The trends in programming languages and
machine architecture that are shaping
compilers

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Language Processing System/Translator

A translator inputs and then converts a

source program into an object or target
program.
 Source program is written in a source
language
 Object program belongs to an object
language
 A translators could be: Assembler,
Compiler or Interpreter

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Language Processing System/Translator

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Assembler

 Assembler:

Assembler

Source Program Object Program

(In Assembly Language) (In machine Language)

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler

A compiler is a program that can read a

program in one language (the source
language) and translate it into an
equivalent program in another language
(the target language)

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler

 If the target program is an executable

machine-language program, it can then be
called by the user to process inputs and
produce outputs

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler

 The compiler also report about errors in

source program.

Compiler

Source Program Target Program

Error Messages

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Interpreter

 An interpreter is another common kind of language

processor. Instead of producing a target program as a
translation, an interpreter appears to directly execute
the operations specified in the source program on
inputs supplied by the user

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter

 The machine-language target program produced by a

compiler is usually much faster than an interpreter at
mapping inputs to outputs .
 An interpreter, however, can usually give better error
diagnostics than a compiler, because it executes the
source program statement by statement.

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter

 Compiler: translates a source program written in a

High-Level Language (HLL) such as Pascal, C++
into computer’s machine language (Low-Level
Language (LLL)).
• The time of conversion from source program into
object program is called compile time
• The object program is executed at run time

 Interpreter: processes an internal form of the

source program and data at the same time (at run
time); no object program is generated.

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter

 Why Interpretation?
• A higher degree of machine independence: high
portability.
• Dynamic execution: modification or addition to
user programs as execution proceeds.
• Dynamic data type: type of object may change
at runtime
• Easier to write: no synthesis part.
• Better diagnostics: more source text
information available

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter

 Compilation Process:

 Interpretive Process:

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter

 Compilation Process:

 Interpretive Process:

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter
 Java language processors combine compilation and
interpretation.

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Compiler vs. Interpreter
 A Java source program may first be compiled into an
intermediate form called bytecodes.
 The bytecodes are then interpreted by a virtual
machine.
 A benefit of this arrangement is that bytecodes
compiled on one machine can be interpreted on
another machine, perhaps across a network.
 In order to achieve faster processing of inputs to
outputs, some Java compilers, called just-in-time
compilers, translate the bytecodes into machine
language immediately before they run the
intermediate program to process the input.

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Model of a Compiler

 A compiler must perform two tasks:

 Analysis of source program:
 The analysis part breaks up the source program
into constituent pieces and imposes a
grammatical structure on them. It then uses this
structure to create an intermediate representation
of the source program.
 Synthesis of its corresponding program:
constructs the desired target program from the
intermediate representation and the information
in the symbol table.

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Model of a Compiler

 This model is collectively called the

Analysis-Synthesis model of compilation.
 The analysis part is often called the front
end (FE) of the compiler
 The synthesis part is the back end (SE).

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Analysis-Synthesis Model of a Compiler

Source Program Object Program

Synthesis
Analysis
Code Code
Lexical Syntactic Semantic
Generator optimizer
Analysis Analysis Analysis

Tables

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Software Tools Performing Analysis

 Software tools other than compilers that

perform analysis on Source Program are:
 Structure Editors: Inputs a sequence of
commands to build a source program.
 The structure editor performs text creation,
modification and analyzes program text for
putting an appropriate hieratical structure on
the source program.
 E.g. Matching do-while and parenthesis { }

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Software Tools Performing Analysis

 Pretty Printers:
 Analyzes a program and prints it in such a
way that the structure of program becomes
clearly visible.
 i.e. Indentation

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Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Software Tools Performing Analysis

 Static Checkers:
 Reads a program, analyzes it and attempts
to discover potential bugs without running
the program.
 E.g. Parts of source program that can
never be executed and using variables
without being defining them.
 Works on dry run techniques.

Compiler Construction [SWE-310] Introduction

Introduction

The End

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