Compiler-construction tools

Originally, compilers were written “from scratch”, but now the situation is quite different. A number of tools are available to ease the burden.

We will study tools that generate scanners and parsers. This will involve us in some theory, regular expressions for scanners and various grammars for parsers. These techniques are fairly successful. One drawback can be that they do not execute as fast as “hand-crafted” scanners and parsers.

We will also see tools for syntax-directed translation and automatic code generation. The automation in these cases is not as complete.

Finally, there is the large area of optimization. This is not automated; however, a basic component of optimization is “data-flow analysis” (how values are transmitted between parts of a program) and there are tools to help with this task.