COMPILER LAB VIVA QUETIONS AND ANSWERS

What Is A Compiler?
A compiler is a program that reads a program written in one language
the source language and translates it into an equivalent program in
another language-the target language. The compiler reports to its user
the presence of errors in the source program.

What Are The Two Parts Of A Compilation? Explain Briefly.

Analysis and Synthesis are the two parts of compilation.

o The analysis part breaks up the source program into

constituent pieces and creates an intermediate representation of the
source program.
o The synthesis part constructs the desired target program
from the intermediate representation.

List The Sub Parts Or Phases Of Analysis Part.

Analysis consists of three phases:

1. Linear Analysis.
2. Hierarchical Analysis.

3. Semantic Analysis.

Suggest A Suitable Approach For Computing Hash

Function.
o Using hash function we should obtain exact locations of
name in symbol table.

o The hash function should result in uniform distribution of

names in symbol table.

o The hash function should be such that there will be

minimum number of collisions.
o Collision is such a situation where hash function results in
same location for storing the names.

What Is Code Motion?

Code motion is an optimization technique in which amount of code in a
loop is decreased. This transformation is applicable to the expression
that yields the same result independent of the number of times the
loop is executed. Such an expression is placed before the loop.

What Are The Properties Of Optimizing Compiler?

The source code should be such that it should produce minimum
amount of target code.
There should not be any unreachable code.
Dead code should be completely removed from source language.
The optimizing compilers should apply following code improving
transformations on source language.

1. common subexpression elimination

2. dead code elimination

3. code movement

4. strength reduction

What Are The Various Ways To Pass A Parameter In A

Function?
o Call by value

o Call by reference

o Copy-restore

o Call by name

Mention The Issues To Be Considered While Applying The

Techniques For Code Optimization.
o The semantic equivalence of the source program must not
be changed.

o The improvement over the program efficiency must be

achieved without changing the algorithm of the program.

o The machine dependent optimization is based on the

characteristics of the target machine for the instruction set used and
addressing modes used for the instructions to produce the efficient
target code.

o The machine independent optimization is based on the

characteristics of the programming languages for appropriate
programming structure and usage of efficient arithmetic properties in
order to reduce the execution time.

o Available expressions.

o Reaching definitions.

o Live variables.

o Busy variables.

What Are The Basic Goals Of Code Movement?

To reduce the size of the code i.e. to obtain the space complexity.
To reduce the frequency of execution of code i.e. to obtain the time
complexity.

List The Different Storage Allocation Strategies.

The strategies are:

o Static allocation
o Stack allocation

o Heap allocation

What Are The Contents Of Activation Record?

The activation record is a block of memory used for managing the
information needed by a single execution of a procedure. Various fields
f activation record are:
o Temporary variables
o Local variables

o Saved machine registers

o Control link

o Access link

o Actual parameters

o Return values

What Is Dynamic Scoping?

In dynamic scoping a use of non-local variable refers to the non-local
data declared in most recently called and still active procedure.
Therefore each time new findings are set up for local names called
procedure. In dynamic scoping symbol tables can be required at run
time.

Define Symbol Table.

Symbol table is a data structure used by the compiler to keep track of
semantics of the variables. It stores information about scope and
binding information about names.

What Is Linear Analysis?

Linear analysis is one in which the stream of characters making up the
source program is read from left to right and grouped into tokens that
are sequences of characters having a collective meaning.Also called
lexical analysis or scanning.

List The Various Phases Of A Compiler.

The following are the various phases of a compiler:

o Lexical Analyzer
o Syntax Analyzer

o Semantic Analyzer

o Intermediate code generator

o Code optimizer

o Code generator

What Are The Classifications Of A Compiler?

Compilers are classified as:

o Single- pass
o Multi-pass

o Load-and-go

o Debugging or optimizing

What Is A Symbol Table?

A symbol table is a data structure containing a record for each
identifier, with fields for the attributes of the identifier. The data
structure allows us to find the record for each identifier quickly and to
store or retrieve data from that record quickly.
Whenever an identifier is detected by a lexical analyzer, it is entered
into the symbol table. The attributes of an identifier cannot be
determined by the lexical analyzer.

Mention Some Of The Cousins Of A Compiler.

Cousins of the compiler are:

o Preprocessors
o Assemblers

o Loaders and Link-Editors

List The Phases That Constitute The Front End Of A

Compiler.
The front end consists of those phases or parts of phases that depend
primarily on the source language and are largely independent of the
target machine. These include
Lexical and Syntactic analysis
The creation of symbol table
Semantic analysis
Generation of intermediate code
 A certain amount of code optimization can be done by the front end as
well. Also includes error handling that goes along with each of these
phases.

Mention The Back-end Phases Of A Compiler.

The back end of compiler includes those portions that depend on the
target machine and generally those portions do not depend on the
source language, just the intermediate language. These include
Code optimization
Code generation, along with error handling and symbol- table
operations.

Define Compiler-compiler.
Systems to help with the compiler-writing process are often been
referred to as compiler-compilers, compiler-generators or translator-
writing systems.
Largely they are oriented around a particular model of languages , and
they are suitable for generating compilers of languages similar model.

List The Various Compiler Construction Tools.

The following is a list of some compiler construction tools:

o Parser generators
o Scanner generators

o Syntax-directed translation engines

o Automatic code generators

o Data-flow engines

Differentiate Tokens, Patterns, Lexeme.

Tokens- Sequence of characters that have a collective meaning.
Patterns- There is a set of strings in the input for which the same
token is produced as output. This set of strings is described by a rule
called a pattern associated with the token
Lexeme- A sequence of characters in the source program that is
matched by the pattern for a token.
 List The Operations On Languages.
o Union L U M ={s | s is in L or s is in M}

o Concatenation LM ={st | s is in L and t is in M}

o Kleene Closure L* (zero or more concatenations of L)

o Positive Closure L+ ( one or more concatenations of L)

Write A Regular Expression For An Identifier.

An identifier is defined as a letter followed by zero or more letters or
digits.
The regular expression for an identifier is given as
letter (letter | digit)*

Mention The Various Notational Short Hands For

Representing Regular Expressions.
o One or more instances (+)

o Zero or one instance (?)

o Character classes ([abc] where a,b,c are alphabet symbols

denotes the regular expressions a | b | c.)

o Non regular sets

What Is The Function Of A Hierarchical Analysis?

Hierarchical analysis is one in which the tokens are grouped
hierarchically into nested collections with collective meaning.Also
termed as Parsing.

What Does A Semantic Analysis Do?

Semantic analysis is one in which certain checks are performed to
ensure that components of a program fit together meaningfully.Mainly
performs type checking.

List The Various Error Recovery Strategies For A Lexical

Analysis.
 Possible error recovery actions are:

o Panic mode recovery

o Deleting an extraneous character

o Inserting a missing character

o Replacing an incorrect character by a correct character

o Transposing two adjacent characters

Mention The Basic Issues In Parsing.

There are two important issues in parsing.

1. Specification of syntax
2. Representation of input after parsing.

Why Lexical And Syntax Analysers Are Separated Out?

Reasons for separating the analysis phase into lexical and syntax
analyzers:

o Simpler design.
o Compiler efficiency is improved.

o Compiler portability is enhanced.

Define A Context Free Grammar.

A context free grammar G is a collection of the following
V is a set of non terminals
T is a set of terminals
S is a start symbol
P is a set of production rules
G can be represented as G = (V,T,S,P)
Production rules are given in the following form
Non terminal (V U T)*

Briefly Explain The Concept Of Derivation.

Derivation from S means generation of string w from S. For
constructing derivation two things are important.
i) Choice of non terminal from several others.
 ii) Choice of rule from production rules for corresponding non terminal.
Instead of choosing the arbitrary non terminal one can choose
i) either leftmost derivation leftmost non terminal in a sentinel form.
ii) or rightmost derivation rightmost non terminal in a sentinel form.

Define Ambiguous Grammar.

A grammar G is said to be ambiguous if it generates more than one
parse tree for some sentence of language L(G).
i.e. both leftmost and rightmost derivations are same for the given
sentence.

What Is A Operator Precedence Parser?

A grammar is said to be operator precedence if it possess the
following properties:
1. No production on the right side is .
2. There should not be any production rule possessing two adjacent
non terminals at the right hand side.

List The Properties Of Lr Parser.

1. LR parsers can be constructed to recognize most of the
programming languages for which the context free grammar can be
written.
2. The class of grammar that can be parsed by LR parser is a superset
of class of grammars that can be parsed using predictive parsers.
3. LR parsers work using non backtracking shift reduce technique yet
it is efficient one.

Mention The Types Of Lr Parser.

SLR parser- simple LR parser
LALR parser- lookahead LR parser
Canonical LR parser

What Are The Problems With Top Down Parsing?

The following are the problems associated with top down parsing:
Backtracking
Left recursion
 Left factoring
Ambiguity

Write Short Notes On Yacc.

o YACC is an automatic tool for generating the parser
program.

o YACC stands for Yet Another Compiler Compiler which is

basically the utility available from UNIX.

o Basically YACC is LALR parser generator.

What Is Meant By Viable Prefixes?

The set of prefixes of right sentential forms that can appear on the
stack of a shift-reduce parser are called viable prefixes. An equivalent
definition of a viable prefix is that it is a prefix of a right sentential
form that does not continue past the right end of the rightmost handle
of that sentential form.

Define Handle.
A handle of a string is a substring that matches the right side of a
production, and whose reduction to the nonterminal on the left side of
the production represents one step along the reverse of a rightmost
derivation.
A handle of a right sentential form is a production A and a
position of where the string may be found and replaced by A to
produce the previous right-sentential form in a rightmost derivation of
. That is , if S =>Aw =>w,then A in the position following is a
handle of w.

What Are Kernel & Non-kernel Items?

Kernel items, whish include the initial item, S .S, and all items
whose dots are not at the left end.
Non-kernel items, which have their dots at the left end.

What Is Phrase Level Error Recovery?

 Phrase level error recovery is implemented by filling in the blank
entries in the predictive parsing table with pointers to error routines.
These routines may change, insert, or delete symbols on the input and
issue appropriate error messages. They may also pop from the stack.

What Are The Benefits Of Intermediate Code Generation?

o A Compiler for different machines can be created by
attaching different back end to the existing front ends of each
machine.

o A Compiler for different source languages can be created by

proving different front ends for corresponding source languages t
existing back end.

o A machine independent code optimizer can be applied to

intermediate code in order to optimize the code generation.

What Are The Various Types Of Intermediate Code

Representation?
There are mainly three types of intermediate code representations.

1. Syntax tree
2. Postfix

3. Three address code