College of Computer Science & Technology

Compiler Construction Principles &

Implementation Techniques

Dr. Ying JIN

Associate Professor
College of CST, Jilin University

Sept. 2007

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College of Computer Science & Technology
Questionaire

• How much you know about a compiler?

• Which compilers have you used before?
• What kind of compiling errors have you find in
your programs before?
– Undefined identifier;
– Missing ……;

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College of Computer Science & Technology
Outline
1. Introduction to Compiler
1.1 Programming Languages
1.2 Compiler and Interpreter
1.3 Programs related to Compiler
1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
1.5 Functional Decomposition and Architecture of a Compiler
1.6 General Working Process of a Compiler for a Toy Language

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Objectives
• To know
– Different programming languages and their features
– Different ways to implement a programming language
– The process to handling programming languages
– The functional components of a compiler
– The working process of a general simple compiler with
an example

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1.1 Programming Languages

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1.1 Programming Languages
• History
– 1800 ， First Programmer
（ Jacquard loom; Analytical engine; Ada Augusta ）
– 1950 ， First Programming Language
(FORTRAN; COBOL; Algol60; LISP)
– 1960 ， emerging hundreds of programming languages
(special-purpose languages; universal language)
– 1970 ， simplifying, abstraction (PASCAL; C; )
– 1980 ， Object Oriented (Ada; Modular; Smalltalk; C++ )
– 1990 ， Internet (Java) ， Libraries ， Script
(Scripting; Perl; Javascript)
– 2000 ， new specification language

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1.1 Programming Languages
• Classifications
– Functions
• Scientific computation; business; table handling; forms; strings;
multi-functional;
– Abstraction level
• Low level
– Machine language; assembly language
• High Level (different paradigms 范例 )
– Procedural programming languages: FORTRAN, PASCAL, C
– Functional programming languages: LISP, HASKELL, ML
– Logical programming languages: PROLOG
– Object-oriented programming languages: Smalltalk, Java, C++

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1.1 Programming Languages
• Definition of a programming language includes
– Lexeme
• Allowed set of characters
• Lexical structure
– Syntax
• Program structure
– Semantics
• Meaning of different structures

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1.2 Compiler and Interpreter

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1.2 Compiler and Interpreter
• Implementation of Programming Languages
– Interpreter :

Program
Interpreter Output
Input

– Translator : Language1  Language2

• Assembler: Assembly Languages  Machine Code
• Compiler : High-level Languages  Low-level Languages

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1.2 Compiler and Interpreter
• Compiler: a program that reads a program written in one
language (source language) and translate it into an
equivalent program in another language (target language).

Source Target
Compiler input
Program Program

• The status of compiler

– System software (Operating System) output
– Meta software system( 元级软件系统 )

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1.2 Compiler and Interpreter
• Comparing Compiler with Interpreter
– Similarity
• Using same implementation techniques
– Difference
• Mechanism: Translation vs. Interpretation
• Execution efficiency: high vs. low
• Storage cost: less vs. more
• Interpreter has some advantages over Compiler
– Portability: Java
– General
– Intermediate code generation is not necessary

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1.3 Programs related to Compiler

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1.3 Programs Related to Compiler

Editor
• Editor Absolute Machine Code

• Preprocessor Skeletal Source Program Loader/Linker

• Compiler Preprocessor Relocatable Machine Code

• Assembler
Source Program Assembler
• Loader
• Linker Compiler Target Assembly
Program

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1.4 Design and Implementation of Compiler

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
College of Computer Science & Technology

• There are 3 languages associated with a compiler

– Source language Ls: Input
– Target language Lt: Output
– Implementation language Li: the language for developing the
compiler
• A compiler is a program written in Li, whose function is
translating a program written in Ls into equivalent program
in Lt.

Ls Lt

Li

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
College of Computer Science & Technology

• For different programming language paradigms, different

techniques will be applied for developing their compilers;
• In this course, focus on general compiler construction
principles and techniques on procedural programming
languages;

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
College of Computer Science & Technology

• There are no existing compilers

– Manually programming machine code ( 手工编写机器代码 )
• Inefficient, hard to maintain
– Self extending ( 自展法 )
• There are compilers available
– Preprocessing ( 预处理方法 )
– Porting ( 移植法 )
– Tools ( 工具法 )
• Automatic generator ( 自动生成工具 )

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
College of Computer Science & Technology

• Self extending
– Problem: if there is no any compiler available, we want
to develop a compiler for a programming language L;
- Solution:
- Define L0 as a sub-language of L;
- Manually write a compiler for L0;
- Make some extensions to L0, which is called L1,
- Develop L1’s compiler with L0;
- ……
- Develop Ln(=L)’s compiler with Ln-1;

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
College of Computer Science & Technology

• Preprocessing
– Problem: if we have a programming Language L and its
compiler, we want to develop a compiler for a
programming languageL1 which makes some extensions
to L;
- Solution:
- Develop a preprocessor: Translating L1 into L
- Use L’s compiler: from L to Target code
- For example: C++  C

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 1.4 Design and Implementation of a Compiler
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• Porting
– Problems:
• source language L
• L’s compiler for machine M1
• we wan to develop another compiler of L for machine M2;
– Same source language, Different target languages
– Two ways
• Develop a program for translating from machine code for M1 to
machine code for M2;
• Rebuild the back-end of the compiler

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1.5 Functional Decomposition &

Architecture of a Compiler

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• Programming Problem
– Develop a compiler for a programming language

• Need to make clear

– What we already know?
– What we are going to do?
• Input & Output
• Data structure + algorithm

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler

• What we already know?

– Definition of the source language (notation, structure,
semantics, rules)
– Definition of the target language (notation, structure,
semantics, rules)
– The language that we are going to use to develop the
compiler

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• Functional description of a compiler
– Input: programs written in source language (source programs)
= sequence of characters
– Output: programs written in target language (target programs/code)
= sequence of instructions
– Algorithm?
• A general process of translating each source program into corresponding
target program;

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• Think about “natural language translation”
– From English to Chinese

You can put your dream into reality through your efforts!

你 能够 通过你的努力 实现你的梦
想！
General process of translation: analysis
Recognize Grammatical
meaningful translation
words Analysis

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• To summarize
– Grasp source language and target language
• Words, syntax, the meaning
– The process of translation one sentence includes
• Analyzing the sentence to make sure that it is correct
– Spell, including recognizing words and their attributes
– Build syntactic structure with respect to the grammar of source
language;
– Make sure it is meaningful;
I eat sky in dog.
• Translating the sentence into target language
– Translating each syntactic parts
– Composing them into a meaningful sentence in target language

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler

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 1.5.1 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
Table Processing

中 中 目
Source 词 语 语 间 间 标 Target
program 法 法 义 代 代 代 Program
分 分 分 码 码 码
析 析 析 生 优 生
成 化 成

Error Handling

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler

Lexical Analysis Target Code

scanning Generation

Intermediate Code
Syntax Analysis Optimization
Parsing

Intermediate Code
Semantic Analysis Generation

analysis/front end synthesis/back end

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• Lexical Analysis
– Reading the source program, which is actually in the form of a
stream of characters;
– Collects sequences of characters into meaningful unit, called
tokens;
• Syntax Analysis
– Reading the sequences of tokens;
– Determining the syntactical structure of the program;
– The results of parsing are represented as a parse tree or a syntax
tree;
• Semantic Analysis
– Static semantics checking, such as type checking
– Symbol table (attributes of identifiers)

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 1.5 Functional Decomposition &
College of Computer Science & Technology Architecture of a Compiler
• Code Generation
– Intermediate Code generation
• Intermediate representation
• portability
– Target Code generation
• Code Optimization
– Efficiency of target program
• Intermediate code optimization
• Target code optimization

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1.6 A General Working Process of a Compiler

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 1.6 A General Working Process of a
College of Computer Science & Technology
Compiler
• Source language : a toy programming language
ToyL
• Target language : assembly language AL
• Demonstrate with an example on how a compiler is
translating a program in ToyL into assembly codes;

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Toy language
• General definition
– Lexical structure
• Allowed set of characters {a-z, A-Z,0-9}
• Tokens:
– keywords : var, if, then, else, while, read, write, int, real, bool
– Identifiers: sequence of limited number of characters starting with
letters
– Numbers: integer or real
– Operators: +, -, *, /, >, <, =
– Delimiters: : , ; , ( , ), {, }

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Toy language
var
int x, y;
• General definition ……
– Syntax (structure of program)
x := a+b;
if x>0 then …
variable declaration else … ;
while x<10 {…};
read(x);
{
write(x+y) ;
sequence of
statements
} +, -, *, /, ( , )

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Toy language
• General definition
– Semantics
• Static semantics
– One identifier should not be declared more than once;
– Use identifiers after they are declared;
– Type equivalence in assignment and expressions;
– The result type of conditional expression in if or while statement
should be boolean;
• Dynamic semantics

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• Sample program
var
int x, y;
{
read(x);
read(y);
if x>y then write(1) else write(0);
}

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v a r  i n t △ x
, y ;  { 

r e a d ( x ) ;  r e a d ( y

)
;  i f △ x > y △ t h e n △

w r i t e ( 1 ) △ e l s e △ w

r i t e ( 0 ) ;  }

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 Lexical analysis
College of Computer Science & Technology

var ，  int, k x, ide , y, ide ; 

k
{ read, k ( x, ide ) ;  read, k

( y, ide ) ;  if, k x, ide >

y , ide then, k write,k ( 1, num ) ; 

else, k write,k ( 0, num ) ;  }

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Syntax Analysis
program

variable declaration statements

type variables read-statement statements

x read-statement if-statement
int x, y
write-statement
y expression
expression
x 〉 y write-statement
0
expression
1
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Semantic Analysis

x varKind int ……

y varKind int ……

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Code Generation
INP(x)
INP(y)
LOAD x ， R1
GT R1, y
JUMP1 R1, L1
OUT(1)
JUMP L2
L1: OUT(0)
L2: EXIT

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Summary

• Different classification of programming languages

• Definition of a programming language
• Definitions and differences of compiler and interpreter;
• Programs related to processing programming languages;
• Design and implementation of a compiler;
• Functional components of a compiler;
• General working process of a compiler;

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Summary

• The problem that we are going to solve in this course

– How to develop a compiler for a programming language?
• Source language: a high-level programming language
• Target language: assembly language or machine language
• Develop a program, whose function is to translating a program
written in source language
• Principle
– Divide and conquer ( 分而治之 )
– Problem  programming task  solution  general
principles and methods

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Reading Assignment
• Topic: How to develop a scanner( 词法分析器 ) ？
• Objectives
– Get to know
• What is a scanner? (input, output, functions)
• Lexical rules for C & Java?
• Originally how you want to develop a scanner?
• From textbook, how a scanner can be built?
• References
– Optional textbooks
• Hand in a report either in English or in Chinese, and one group will be
asked to give a presentation at the beginning of next class;
• Tips:
– Collect more information from textbooks and internet;
– Establish your own opinion;

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