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Compiler Back End
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman - Second Edition, 2007 There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms. A ''cross-compiler'' produces code for a different CPU or operating system than the one on which the cross-compiler itself runs. A ''bootstrap compiler'' is often a temporary compiler, used for compiling a more permanent or better optimised compiler for a language. Related software include, a program that translates from a low-level language to a hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, information systems, information technology and software engineering. The term "computing" is also synonymous with counting and calculating. In earlier times, it was used in reference to the action performed by mechanical computing machines, and before that, to human computers. History The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper (or for chalk and slate) with or without the aid of tables. Computing is intimately tied to the representation of numbers, though mathematical conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Source-to-source Compiler
A source-to-source translator, source-to-source compiler (S2S compiler), transcompiler, or transpiler is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent source code in the same or a different programming language. A source-to-source translator converts between programming languages that operate at approximately the same level of abstraction, while a traditional compiler translates from a higher level programming language to a lower level programming language. For example, a source-to-source translator may perform a translation of a program from Python to JavaScript, while a traditional compiler translates from a language like C to assembler or Java to bytecode. An automatic parallelizing compiler will frequently take in a high level language program as an input and then transform the code and annotate it with parallel code annotations (e.g., OpenMP) or language constructs (e.g. Fortran's f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compiler Correctness
In computing, compiler correctness is the branch of computer science that deals with trying to show that a compiler behaves according to its language specification. Techniques include developing the compiler using formal methods and using rigorous testing (often called compiler validation) on an existing compiler. Formal verification Two main formal verification approaches for establishing correctness of compilation are proving correctness of the compiler for all inputs and proving correctness of a compilation of a particular program (translation validation). Compiler correctness for all input programs Compiler validation with formal methods involves a long chain of formal, deductive logic. However, since the tool to find the proof ( theorem prover) is implemented in software and is complex, there is a high probability it will contain errors. One approach has been to use a tool that verifies the proof (a proof checker) which, because it is much simpler than a proof-finder, is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Transformation
A program transformation is any operation that takes a computer program and generates another program. In many cases the transformed program is required to be semantically equivalent to the original, relative to a particular formal semantics and in fewer cases the transformations result in programs that semantically differ from the original in predictable ways. While the transformations can be performed manually, it is often more practical to use a program transformation system that applies specifications of the required transformations. Program transformations may be specified as automated procedures that modify compiler data structures (e.g. abstract syntax trees) representing the program text, or may be specified more conveniently using patterns or templates representing parameterized source code fragments. A practical requirement for source code transformation systems is that they be able to effectively process programs written in a programming language. This usually require ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Code Generation (compiler)
In computing, code generation is part of the process chain of a compiler and converts intermediate representation of source code into a form (e.g., machine code) that can be readily executed by the target system. Sophisticated compilers typically perform multiple passes over various intermediate forms. This multi-stage process is used because many algorithms for code optimization are easier to apply one at a time, or because the input to one optimization relies on the completed processing performed by another optimization. This organization also facilitates the creation of a single compiler that can target multiple architectures, as only the last of the code generation stages (the ''backend'') needs to change from target to target. (For more information on compiler design, see Compiler.) The input to the code generator typically consists of a parse tree or an abstract syntax tree. The tree is converted into a linear sequence of instructions, usually in an intermediate language s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Code Optimization
In computer science, program optimization, code optimization, or software optimization, is the process of modifying a software system to make some aspect of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources. In general, a computer program may be optimized so that it executes more rapidly, or to make it capable of operating with less memory storage or other resources, or draw less power. General Although the word "optimization" shares the same root as "optimal", it is rare for the process of optimization to produce a truly optimal system. A system can generally be made optimal not in absolute terms, but only with respect to a given quality metric, which may be in contrast with other possible metrics. As a result, the optimized system will typically only be optimal in one application or for one audience. One might reduce the amount of time that a program takes to perform some task at the price of making it consume more memory. In an application where memory space is at a premium, on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermediate Representation
An intermediate representation (IR) is the data structure or code used internally by a compiler or virtual machine to represent source code. An IR is designed to be conducive to further processing, such as optimization and translation. A "good" IR must be ''accurate'' – capable of representing the source code without loss of information – and ''independent'' of any particular source or target language. An IR may take one of several forms: an in-memory data structure, or a special tuple- or stack-based code readable by the program. In the latter case it is also called an ''intermediate language''. A canonical example is found in most modern compilers. For example, the CPython interpreter transforms the linear human-readable text representing a program into an intermediate graph structure that allows flow analysis and re-arrangement before execution. Use of an intermediate representation such as this allows compiler systems like the GNU Compiler Collection and LLVM to be use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax-directed Translation
Syntax-directed translation refers to a method of compiler implementation where the source language translation is completely driven by the parser. A common method of syntax-directed translation is translating a string into a sequence of actions by attaching one such action to each rule of a grammar. Thus, parsing a string of the grammar produces a sequence of rule applications. SDT provides a simple way to attach semantics to any such syntax. Overview Syntax-directed translation fundamentally works by adding actions to the productions in a context-free grammar, resulting in a Syntax-Directed Definition (SDD).Aho, Alfred V. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, & Tools. Boston: Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2007. Actions are steps or procedures that will be carried out when that production is used in a derivation. A grammar specification embedded with actions to be performed is called a ''syntax-directed translation scheme'' (sometimes simply called a 'translation scheme'.) Each symbol i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantic Analysis (compilers)
Semantic analysis or context sensitive analysis is a process in compiler construction, usually after parsing, to gather necessary semantic information from the source code. It usually includes type checking, or makes sure a variable is declared before use which is impossible to describe in the extended Backus–Naur form and thus not easily detected during parsing. See also * Attribute grammar * Context-sensitive language * Semantic analysis (computer science) In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily ... References Compiler construction Program analysis {{plt-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parsing
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Latin ''pars'' (''orationis''), meaning part (of speech). The term has slightly different meanings in different branches of linguistics and computer science. Traditional sentence parsing is often performed as a method of understanding the exact meaning of a sentence or word, sometimes with the aid of devices such as sentence diagrams. It usually emphasizes the importance of grammatical divisions such as subject and predicate. Within computational linguistics the term is used to refer to the formal analysis by a computer of a sentence or other string of words into its constituents, resulting in a parse tree showing their syntactic relation to each other, which may also contain semantic and other information (p-values). Some parsing algor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Analysis
In computer science, lexical analysis, lexing or tokenization is the process of converting a sequence of characters (such as in a computer program or web page) into a sequence of ''lexical tokens'' (strings with an assigned and thus identified meaning). A program that performs lexical analysis may be termed a ''lexer'', ''tokenizer'', or ''scanner'', although ''scanner'' is also a term for the first stage of a lexer. A lexer is generally combined with a parser, which together analyze the syntax of programming languages, web pages, and so forth. Applications A lexer forms the first phase of a compiler frontend in modern processing. Analysis generally occurs in one pass. In older languages such as ALGOL, the initial stage was instead line reconstruction, which performed unstropping and removed whitespace and comments (and had scannerless parsers, with no separate lexer). These steps are now done as part of the lexer. Lexers and parsers are most often used for compilers, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preprocessor
In computer science, a preprocessor (or precompiler) is a program that processes its input data to produce output that is used as input in another program. The output is said to be a preprocessed form of the input data, which is often used by some subsequent programs like compilers. The amount and kind of processing done depends on the nature of the preprocessor; some preprocessors are only capable of performing relatively simple textual substitutions and macro expansions, while others have the power of full-fledged programming languages. A common example from computer programming is the processing performed on source code before the next step of compilation. In some computer languages (e.g., C and PL/I) there is a phase of translation known as ''preprocessing''. It can also include macro processing, file inclusion and language extensions. Lexical preprocessors Lexical preprocessors are the lowest-level of preprocessors as they only require lexical analysis, that is, they oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
