Compiler Construction
(CS-636)
Muhammad Bilal Bashir
UIIT, Rawalpindi
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Outline
Introduction to the Course
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3.
Course Introduction
Course Objectives
Organization of the Course
Topics to be Covered
Pre-requisites & Evaluation
Introduction to Compiler
Summary
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Introduction to the Course
Compiler Construction
CS-636
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Course Introduction

At the end of the course, students should
understand the overall structure of a
compiler, and will have the knowledge of the
significant details of a number of important
techniques commonly used. The language
features that raise challenges for compiler
builders are also introduced in this course.
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Course Objectives


To teach students the basic concepts of
compilers, their components and how they work
together
To get lexical analyzer and syntax analyzer
implemented of any programming language,
most likely C++
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Organization of the Course

Theoretical

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Presentation

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This part will be covered through lectures delivered
with the help of slides during class meetings
Students will be given a topic to prepare a brief
presentation. The presentation will be scheduled in
the later part of the semester
Project

Implementation of Lexical Analyzer and Parser of C++
will be required from the students
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Topics to be Covered
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Compiler introduction
Organization of compilers
Background / Revision of Automata Concepts
Lexical analysis
Syntax analysis
Parsing techniques
Object code generation and optimization
Detection and recovery from errors
Advanced Topics
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Pre-requisites & Evaluation

Pre-requisites
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
Automata Theory
Computer Programming
Evaluation
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Mid-term Exam
Final Exam
Project & Presentations
30%
50%
20%
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Miscellaneous

Online Course Folder
http://jbillu.net/cc/

How to Reach Me
[email protected]
Subject: CC - XYZ
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Introduction to Compiler
Lecture: 1
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What is a Compiler?
Compiler is a tool:
 which translate notations from one system to
another, usually from source code (high level
code) to machine code (object code, target
code, low level code).
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What is a Compiler? (Continue…)

A computer program translates one language to
another
Source
Program

Target
Program
A compiler is a complex program


Compiler
From 10,000 to 1,000,000 lines of codes
Compilers are used in many forms of computing

Command interpreters, interface programs
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What is Involved in Compilers?
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Programming Languages
Formal Languages
Regular Expressions & Automata Theory
Applications
Programming Languages ?


We use natural languages to communicate
We use programming languages to speak with
computers
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Why Compiler?

Writing machine language-numeric codes is time
consuming and tedious
C7 06 0000 0002
Mov x, 2
X=2

The assembly language has a number of
defects


Not easy to write
Difficult to read and understand
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Brief History of Compiler

The first compiler was developed between 1954 and
1957
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The FORTRAN language and its compiler by a team
at IBM led by John Backus
The structure of natural language was studied at about
the same time by Noam Chomsky

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
Chomsky classified languages according to the
complexity of their grammar
Chomsky’s Hierarchy, as it is now called have four
levels of grammar type 0, 1, 2, and 3
The type 2 or context free grammar is considered the
most useful for programming languages
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Brief History of Compiler (Continue…)

Recent advances in compiler design

More sophisticated algorithms for inferring and/or
simplifying the information contained in program,
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Window-based Interactive Development
Environment

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such as the unification algorithm of Hindley-Milner
type checking
IDE that includes editors, linkers, debuggers, and
project managers
However, the basic of compiler design have not
changed much in the last 50+ years
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Files Involved in Compiler Operations
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A source code text file (.c, .cpp, .java, etc. file
extensions)
Intermediate code files: transformations of
source code during compilation, usually kept in
temporary files rarely seen by the user
An assembly code text file containing symbolic
machine code, often produced as the output of a
compiler (.asm, .s file extensions)
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Files Involved in Compiler Operations
(Continue…)
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One or more binary object code files:
machine instructions, not yet linked or
executable (.obj, .o file extensions)
A binary executable file: linked,
independently executable (well, not
always…) code (.exe, .out extensions, or no
extension)
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Summary
Any Questions?
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