An Overview of a
Compiler
Compiler
Outline of the
Lecture
About the course
Why should we study compiler
design? Compiler overview with
block diagrams
Compiler
About the
Course
A detailed look at the internals of a
compiler Does not assume any background
but is intensive
Doing programming assignments and solving
theoretical problems are both essential
A compiler is an excellent example of theory
translated into practice in a remarkable way
Compiler
Why Should We Study Compiler
Design?
Compilers are everywhere!
Many applications for compiler
technology Parsers for HTML in
web browser Interpreters for
javascript/flash
Machine code generation for high level
languages Software testing
Program optimization
Malicious code detection
Design of new computer architectures
Compiler-in-the-loop hardware development
Hardware synthesis: VHDL to RTL translation
Compiled simulation
Used to simulate designs written in VHDL
No interpretation of design, hence
faster
Compiler
About the Complexity of Compiler
Technology
A compiler is possibly the most complex system
software and writing it is a substantial exercise in
software engineering
The complexity arises from the fact that it is
required to map a programmer’s requirements (in
a HLL program) to architectural details
It uses algorithms and techniques from a very
large number of areas in computer science
Translates intricate theory into practice -
enables tool building
Compiler
About the Nature of Compiler
Algorithms
Draws results from mathematical logic, lattice
theory, linear algebra, probability, etc.
type checking, static analysis, dependence
analysis and loop parallelization, cache analysis,
etc.
Makes practical application of
Greedy algorithms - register
allocation Heuristic search - list
scheduling
Graph algorithms - dead code elimination,
register allocation
Dynamic programming - instruction
selection
Optimization techniques - instruction
scheduling Finite automata - lexical
analysis
Pushdown automata - parsing
Fixed point algorithms - data-flow analysis
Complex data structuresCompiler
- symbol tables, parse
Other Uses of Scanning and Parsing
Techniques
Assembler implementation
Online text searching (GREP, AWK) and word
processing Website filtering
Command language interpreters
Scripting language interpretation (Unix shell, Perl,
Python) XML parsing and document tree
construction
Database query interpreters
Compiler
Other Uses of Program Analysis
Techniques
Converting a sequential loop to a parallel loop
Program analysis to determine if programs are
data-race free
Profiling programs to determine busy
regions Program slicing
Data-flow analysis approach to software
testing Uncovering errors along all
paths Dereferencing null pointers
Buffer overflows and memory leaks
Worst Case Execution Time (WCET)
estimation and energy analysis
Compiler
Language Processing
System
Compiler
Compiler
Overview
Compiler
Compilers and
Interpreters
Compilers generate machine code, whereas
interpreters interpret intermediate code
Interpreters are easier to write and can provide
better error messages (symbol table is still
available)
Interpreters are at least 5 times slower than
machine code generated by compilers
Interpreters also require much more memory than
machine code generated by compilers
Examples: Perl, Python, Unix Shell, Java, BASIC,
LISP
Compiler
Translation Overview - Lexical
Analysis
Compiler
Lexical
Analysis
LA can be generated automatically from regular
expression specifications
LEX and Flex are two such tools
LA is a deterministic finite state
automaton Why is LA separate from
parsing?
Simplification of design - software engineering
reason I/O issues are limited LA alone
LA based on finite automata are more efficient to
implement than pushdown automata used for
parsing (due to stack)
Compiler
Translation Overview - Syntax
Analysis
Compiler
Parsing or Syntax
Analysis
Syntax analyzers (parsers) can be generated
automatically from several variants of context-free
grammar specifications
LL(1), and LALR(1) are the most popular ones
ANTLR (for LL(1)), YACC and Bison (for LALR(1)) are
such tools
Parsers are deterministic push-down automata
Parsers cannot handle context-sensitive
features of programming languages; e.g.,
Variables are declared before use
Types match on both sides of assignments
Parameter types and number match in
declaration and use
Compiler
Translation Overview - Semantic
Analysis
Compiler
Semantic
Analysis
Semantic consistency that cannot be handled
at the parsing stage is handled here
Type checking of various programming
language constructs is one of the most
important tasks
Stores type information in the symbol table or the
syntax tree
Types of variables, function parameters, array
dimensions, etc.
Used not only for semantic validation but
also for subsequent phases of compilation
Static semantics of programming languages
can be specified using attribute grammars
Compiler
Translation Overview - Intermediate Code
Generation
Compiler
Intermediate Code
Generation
While generating machine code directly from
source code is possible, it entails two problems
With m languages and n target machines, we need
to write
m × n compilers
The code optimizer which is one of the largest and
very-difficult-to-write components of any compiler
cannot be reused
By converting source code to an intermediate
code, a machine-independent code optimizer
may be written
Intermediate code must be easy to produce and
easy to translate to machine code
A sort of universal assembly language
Should not contain any machine-specific
parameters (registers, addresses, etc.)
Compiler
Different Types of Intermediate
Code
The type of intermediate code deployed is based
on the application
Quadruples, triples, indirect triples, abstract
syntax trees are the classical forms used for
machine-independent optimizations and machine
code generation
Static Single Assignment form (SSA) is a recent
form and enables more effective optimizations
Conditional constant propagation and global
value numbering are more effective on SSA
Program Dependence Graph (PDG) is useful in
automatic parallelization, instruction scheduling,
and software pipelining
Compiler
Translation Overview - Code
Optimization
Compiler
Machine-independent Code
Optimization
Intermediate code generation process
introduces many inefficiencies
Extra copies of variables, using variables
instead of constants, repeated evaluation of
expressions, etc.
Code optimization removes such
inefficiencies and improves code
Improvement may be time, space, or power
consumption
It changes the structure of programs, sometimes of
beyond recognition
Inlines functions, unrolls loops, eliminates
some programmer-defined variables, etc.
Code optimization consists of a bunch of heuristics
and percentage of improvement depends on
programs (may be zero also)
Compiler
Examples of Machine-Independant
Optimizations
Common sub-expression
elimination Copy propagation
Loop invariant code
motion Partial
redundancy elimination
Induction variable elimination and strength
reduction Code opimization needs information
about the program
which expressions are being recomputed in a
function? which definitions reach a point?
All such information is gathered through data-
flow analysis
Compiler
Translation Overview - Code
Generation
Compiler
Code
Generation
Converts intermediate code to machine code
Each intermediate code instruction may result
in many machine instructions or vice-cersa
Must handle all aspects of machine
architecture
Registers, pipelining, cache, multiple function
units, etc.
Generating efficient code is an NP-complete
problem
Tree pattern matching-based strategies are among
the best Needs tree intermediate code
Storage allocation decisions are made here
Register allocation and assignment are the most
important problems
Compiler
Machine-Dependent
Optimizations
Peephole optimizations
Analyze sequence of instructions in a small
window (peephole) and using preset patterns,
replace them with a more efficient sequence
Redundant instruction elimination
e.g., replace the sequence [LD A,R1][ST R1,A]
by [LD A,R1]
Eliminate “jump to jump” instructions
Use machine idioms (use INC instead of LD and
ADD)
Instruction scheduling (reordering) to eliminate
pipeline interlocks and to increase parallelism
Trace scheduling to increase the size of basic
blocks and increase parallelism
Software pipelining to increase parallelism in
loops
Compiler
