This book has been written to support a practically oriented course in programming language translation for senior undergraduates in Computer Science. More specifically, it is aimed at students who are probably quite competent in the art of imperative programming (for example, in C++, Pascal, or Modula-2), but whose mathematics may be a little weak; students who require only a solid introduction to the subject, so as to provide them with insight into areas of language design and implementation, rather than a deluge of theory which they will probably never use again; students who will enjoy fairly extensive case studies of translators for the sorts of languages with which they are most familiar; students who need to be made aware of compiler writing tools, and to come to appreciate and know how to use them. It will hopefully also appeal to a certain class of hobbyist who wishes to know more about how translators work.

Free Ebook Compilers and Compilers Generators, an introduction with C++.pdf by P.D. Terry

The book starts with a fairly simple overview of the translation process, of the constituent parts of a compiler, and of the concepts of porting and bootstrapping compilers. This is followed by a chapter on machine architecture and machine emulation, as later case studies make extensive use of code generation for emulated machines, a very common strategy in introductory courses. The next chapter introduces the student to the notions of regular expressions, grammars, BNF and EBNF, and the value of being able to specify languages concisely and accurately.

Two chapters follow that discuss simple features of assembler language, accompanied by the development of an assembler/interpreter system which allows not only for very simple assembly, but also for conditional assembly, macro-assembly, error detection, and so on. Complete code for such an assembler is presented in a highly modularized form, but with deliberate scope left for extensions, ranging from the trivial to the extensive............more

Three chapters follow on formal syntax theory, parsing, and the manual construction of scanners and parsers. The usual classifications of grammars and restrictions on practical grammars are discussed in some detail. The material on parsing is kept to a fairly simple level, but with a thorough discussion of the necessary conditions for LL(1) parsing. The parsing method treated in most detail is the method of recursive descent, as is found in many Pascal compilers; LR parsing is only briefly discussed.

The next chapter is on syntax directed translation, and stresses to the reader the importance and usefulness of being able to start from a context-free grammar, adding attributes and actions that allow for the manual or mechanical construction of a program that will handle the system that it defines. Obvious applications come from the field of translators, but applications in other areas such as simple database design are also used and suggested.

The next two chapters give a thorough introduction to the use of Coco/R, a compiler generator based on L- attributed grammars. Besides a discussion of Cocol, the specification language for this tool, several in-depth case studies are presented, and the reader is given some indication of how parser generators are themselves constructed.

The next two chapters discuss the construction of a recursive descent compiler for a simple Pascal-like source language, using both hand-crafted and machine-generated techniques. The compiler produces pseudo-code for a hypothetical stack-based computer (for which an interpreter was developed in an earlier chapter). "On the fly" code generation is discussed, as well as the use of intermediate tree construction.

The last chapters extend the simple language (and its compiler) to allow for procedures and functions, demonstrate the usual stack-frame approach to storage management, and go on to discuss the implementation of simple concurrent programming. At all times the student can see how these are handled by the compiler/interpreter system, which slowly grows in complexity and usefulness until the final product enables the development of quite sophisticated programs.

The text abounds with suggestions for further exploration, and includes references to more advanced texts where these can be followed up. Wherever it seems appropriate the opportunity is taken to make the reader more aware of the strong and weak points in topical imperative languages. Examples are drawn from several languages, such as Pascal, Modula-2, Oberon, C, C++, Edison and Ada.

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