Unit-2

Syntax Analysis or Parsing is the second phase, i.e. after lexical analysis. It checks the
syntactical structure of the given input, i.e. whether the given input is in the correct
syntax (of the language in which the input has been written) or not. It does so by
building a data structure, called a Parse tree or Syntax tree. The parse tree is constructed
by using the pre-defined Grammar of the language and the input string. If the given
input string can be produced with the help of the syntax tree (in the derivation process),
the input string is found to be in the correct syntax. if not, the error is reported by the
syntax analyzer. The primary objective of syntax analysis is to determine whether the
given input conforms to the syntax rules defined by the language grammar. This process
involves breaking down the source code into its constituent components, such as tokens
or lexemes, and then arranging them into a hierarchical structure based on the grammar
rules. This hierarchical structure is typically represented as a syntax tree or abstract
syntax tree (AST).

Syntax analysis is commonly performed using parsing techniques such as recursive

descent parsing, LL parsing, LR parsing, or more sophisticated methods like parser
combinators and parser generators (e.g., YACC, ANTLR).

Additionally, syntax analysis often incorporates error handling mechanisms to provide

informative feedback to users about syntax errors encountered during compilation. This
feedback helps programmers identify and correct mistakes in their code efficiently.

Overall, syntax analysis serves as a critical step in the compilation process, bridging the
gap between the textual representation of code and its underlying structure, paving the
way for subsequent phases such as semantic analysis, optimization, and code
generation.

Context-Free Grammars
A Context-Free Grammar (CFG) is a formal system used to describe the syntax or structure of a
programming language. It consists of a set of production rules that define how the language's
symbols (or non-terminals) can be combined to form valid strings (or sentences) in the
language.

Top-down parsing can be viewed as the problem of constructing a parse tree for
the input string, starting from the root and creating the nodes of the parse tree in
preorder (depth-first, as discussed in Section 2.3.4). Equivalently, top-down
parsing can be viewed as finding a leftmost derivation for an input string.