Semantic Analysis

There is more to a front end than simply syntax. The compiler needs semantic information, e.g., the types (integer, real, pointer to array of integers, etc) of the objects involved. This enables checking for semantic errors and inserting type conversion where necessary.

For example, if y was declared to be a real and x3 an integer, we need to insert (unary, i.e., one operand) conversion operators “inttoreal” and “realtoint” as shown on the right.