Syntax-Directed Translation

Acknowledgement
• Alfred V Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi,
Jeffrey D Ullman- “Compilers- Principles,
Techniques and Tools”

Dr. Girish Kumar Patnaik 2

 Syntax-Directed Translation
• Grammar symbols are associated with attributes to associate
information with the programming language constructs that they
represent.
• Values of these attributes are evaluated by the semantic rules
associated with the production rules.
• Evaluation of these semantic rules:
– may generate intermediate codes
– may put information into the symbol table
– may perform type checking
– may issue error messages
– may perform some other activities
– in fact, they may perform almost any activities.
• An attribute may hold almost any thing.
– a string, a number, a memory location, a complex record.

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 Syntax-Directed Translation
• When we associate semantic rules with productions, we use two
notations:
– Syntax-Directed Definitions
– Translation Schemes
• Syntax-Directed Definitions:
– give high-level specifications for translations
– hide many implementation details such as order of evaluation of semantic actions.
– We associate a production rule with a set of semantic actions, and we do not say when they will be
evaluated.

• Translation Schemes:
– indicate the order of evaluation of semantic actions associated with a production rule.
– In other words, translation schemes give a little bit information about implementation details.

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 Syntax-Directed Definitions
• A syntax-directed definition is a generalization of a context-free grammar
in which:
– Each grammar symbol is associated with a set of attributes.
– This set of attributes for a grammar symbol is partitioned into two subsets called synthesized and inherited
attributes of that grammar symbol.
– Each production rule is associated with a set of semantic rules.
• Semantic rules set up dependencies between attributes which can be
represented by a dependency graph.
• This dependency graph determines the evaluation order of these semantic
rules.
• Evaluation of a semantic rule defines the value of an attribute. But a
semantic rule may also have some side effects such as printing a value.

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 Inherited and Synthesized Attributes
• A synthesized attribute for a non-terminal A at a parse-tree node N
is defined by a semantic rule associated with the production at N.
Note that the production must have A as its head.
• A synthesized attribute at node N is defined only in terms of
attribute values at the children of N and at N itself.
• An inherited attribute for a non-terminal B at a parse-tree node N is
defined by a semantic rule associated with the production at the
parent of N. Note that the production must have B as a symbol in
its body.
• An inherited attribute at node N is defined only in terms of
attribute values at N's parent , N itself, and N's siblings.

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 Inherited and Synthesized Attributes
• If attribute of left-hand side is computed from
attributes in the right-hand side, attribute is
synthesized: bottom-up propagation
• If attribute of symbol on right-hand is computed
from attributes of left-hand side, or from
attributes of other symbols on right-hand side,
attribute is inherited: top-down propagation of
information

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 Inherited and Synthesized Attributes
• We do not allow an inherited attribute at node N to be defined in
terms of attribute values at the children of node N
• We do allow a synthesized attribute at node N to be defined in
terms of inherited attribute values at node N itself
• Terminals can have synthesized attributes, but not inherited
attributes.
• Attributes for terminals have lexical values that are supplied by the
lexical analyzer;
• There are no semantic rules in the SDD itself for computing the
value of an attribute for a terminal.

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 Inherited and Synthesized Attributes
• In the Example below, each of the non-terminals has a single
synthesized attribute, called val.
• The terminal digit has a synthesized attribute lexval, which is
an integer value returned by the lexical analyzer.

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 Inherited and Synthesized Attributes
• An SDD that involves only synthesized
attributes is called S-attributed
• In an S-attributed SDD, each rule computes
an attribute for the non-terminal at the head
of a production from attributes taken from
the body of the production.
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Synthesized Versus Inherited Attributes

Production Semantic Rule inherited

DTL L.in := T.type

T  int T.type := ‘integer’
… …
L  id … := L.in synthesized

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Acyclic Dependency Graphs for Parse Trees

A.a
AXY A.a := f(X.x, Y.y)
X.x Y.y

A.a
X.x := f(A.a, Y.y)
X.x Y.y

A.a
Direction of
value dependence Y.y := f(A.a, X.x)
X.x Y.y
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 Dependency Graphs with Cycles?
• Edges in the dependency graph determine the
evaluation order for attribute values
• Dependency graphs cannot be cyclic
A.a A.a := f(X.x)
X.x := f(Y.y)
X.x Y.y Y.y := f(A.a)
Error: cyclic dependence

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 Annotated Parse Tree
• A parse tree showing the values of attributes at
each node is called an annotated parse tree.
• The process of computing the attributes values at
the nodes is called annotating (or decorating) of
the parse tree.
• Of course, the order of these computations
depends on the dependency graph induced by
the semantic rules.
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 Example Attribute Grammar with
Synthesized+Inherited Attributes
Production Semantic Rule
DTL L.in := T.type
T  int T.type := ‘integer’
T  real T.type := ‘real’
L  L1 , id L1.in := L.in; addtype(id.entry, L.in)
L  id addtype(id.entry, L.in)

Synthesized: T.type, id.entry

Inherited: L.in

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Example Annotated Parse Tree

T.type = ‘real’ L.in = ‘real’

real L.in = ‘real’ , id3.entry

L.in = ‘real’ , id2.entry

id1.entry

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Example Annotated Parse Tree with
Dependency Graph
D

T.type = ‘real’ L.in = ‘real’

real L.in = ‘real’ , id3.entry

L.in = ‘real’ , id2.entry

id1.entry

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 Annotated parse
tree for 3 * 5 + 4 n

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 S-Attributed Definitions
• An SDD is S-attributed if every attribute is
synthesized
• We can evaluate its attributes in any bottom-up
order of the nodes of the parse tree
• Simple to evaluate the attributes by performing
a postorder traversal of the parse tree and
evaluating the attributes at a node
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 L-Attributed Definitions
• Dependency-graph edges can go from left to right, but not from
right to left
• Each attribute must be either
– Synthesized, or
– Inherited, but with the rules limited as follows .
• Suppose that there is a production A → XIX2... Xn , and that there is an
inherited attribute Xi · a computed by a rule associated with this production.
Then the rule may use only:
a) Inherited attributes associated with the head A.
b) Either inherited or synthesized attributes associated with the occurrences of symbols
Xl , X2 , ••• ,Xi-l located to the left of Xi .
c) Inherited or synthesized attributes associated with this occurrence of Xi
itself, but only in such a way that there are no cycles in a dependency graph
formed by the attributes of this Xi

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 L-Attributed Definitions
• L-Attributed

• Not L-Attributed

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 Applications of Syntax-Directed
Translation
• Construction of Syntax Trees
• The Structure of a Type

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 Construction of Syntax Trees
• A syntax-tree node representing an expression El+ E2
has label + and two children representing the sub
expressions El and E2 ·
• Implement the nodes of a syntax tree by objects
– If the node is a leaf, an additional field holds the lexical value
for the leaf
– If the node is an interior node, there are as many additional
fields as the node has children in the syntax tree.

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 Syntax Tree
for a – 4 + c

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 The Structure of a Type
• Inherited attributes are useful when the structure of the parse
tree differs from the abstract syntax of the input
• Int [2][3] can be read as “array of 2 arrays of 3 integers”
• The corresponding type expression array(2, array(3, integer) )
is represented by the tree

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• synthesized attribute t
• inherited attribute b

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 Syntax-Directed Translation Schemes
• A syntax- directed translation scheme (SDT) is
a context free grammar with program
fragments embedded within production
bodies .
• The program fragments are called semantic
actions and can appear at any position within
a production body.
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 Postfix Translation Schemes
• SDT's with all actions at the right ends of the
production bodies are called postfix SDT's.
• Implementation of the desk calculator

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Parser-Stack Implementation of Postfix
SDT's
• The attribute(s) of each grammar symbol can be put
on the stack in a place where they can be found
during the reduction.
• The best plan is to place the attributes along with the
grammar symbols (or the LR states that represent
these symbols) in records on the stack itself.

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Implementing the desk calculator on a
bottom-up parsing stack

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 SDT's With Actions Inside Productions
• if we have a production B →X {a} Y, the action {a} is done
after we have recognized X (if X is a terminal) or all the
terminals derived from X (if X is a nonterminal)
• If the parse is bottom-up, then we perform action {a} as
soon as this occurrence of X appears on the top of the
parsing stack.
• If the parse is top-down, we perform {a} just before we
attempt to expand this occurrence of Y (if Y a nonterminal)
or check for Y on the input (if Y is a terminal)

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Eliminating Left Recursion From SDT's
• Before Elimination

• After Elimination

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 SDT's for L-Attributed Definitions
• The rules for turning an L-attributed SDD into an SDT are as follows:
1. Embed the action that computes the inherited attributes for a
nonterminal A immediately before that occurrence of A in the
body of the production.
– If several inherited attributes for A depend on one another in an
acyclic fashion, order the evaluation of attributes so that those
needed first are computed first.
2. Place the actions that compute a synthesized attribute for the
head of a production at the end of the body of that production.

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 SDT's for L-Attributed Definitions
• Production for While-Statement

• SDD for While-Statements

• SDT for While-Statements

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