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Course Organization
The course is organized around theory and significant amount of practice. The practice will be in the form of home works and a project. The project is the highlight of the course: you will build a full compiler for subset of Java- like language. The implementation will in C++ and you will generate Intel x86 assembly language code. The project will be done in six parts; each will be a programming assignment.
The grade distribution will be
The primary text for the course is Compilers – Principles, Techniques and Tools by Aho, Sethi and Ullman. This is also called the Dragon Book; here is the image on the cover of the book:
Theory Homeworks 10% Exams 50% Practice Project 40%
Why Take this Course
There are number of reason for why you should take this course. Let’s go through a few
Reason #1: understand compilers and languages We all have used one or computer languages to write programs. We have used compilers to “compile” our code and eventually turn it into an executable. While we worry about data structures, algorithms and all the functionality that our application is supposed to provide, we perhaps overlook the programming language, the structure of the code and the language semantics. In this course, we will attempt to understand the code structure, understand language semantics and understand relation between source code and generated machine code. This will allow you to become a better programmer
Reason #2: nice balance of theory and practice We have studied a lot of theory in various CS courses related to languages and grammar. We have covered mathematical models: regular expressions, automata, grammars and graph algorithms that use these models. We will now have an opportunity to put this theory into practice by building a real compiler.
Reason #3: programming experience Creating a compiler entails writing a large computer program which manipulates complex data structures and implement sophisticated algorithm. In the process, we will learn more about C++ and Intel x86 assembly language. The experience, however, will be applicable if we desire to use another programming language, say Java, and generate code for architecture other than Intel.
What are Compilers
Compilers translate information from one represent ation to another. Thus, a tool that translates, say, Russian into English could be labeled as a compiler. In this course, however, information = program in a computer language. In this context, we will talk of compilers such as VC, VC++, GCC, JavaC FORTRAN, Pascal, VB. Application that convert, for example, a Word file to PDF or PDF to Postscript will be called “translators”. In this course we will study typical compilation: from programs written in high- level languages to low- level object code and machine code.
Issues in Compilation
The translation of code from some human readable form to machine code must be “correct”, i.e., the generated machine code must execute precisely the same computation as the source code. In general, there is no unique translation from source language to a destination language. No algorithm exists for an “ideal translation”.
Translation is a complex process. The source language and generated code are very different. To manage this complex process, the translation is carried out in multiple passes.
