System Programming

Prof. Awadhesh Dixit and Prof. Trilok Suthar

Assistant Professor
Information Technology
 CHAPTER-2

Overview of Language Processors

Topics to be covered
• Overview of Language Processors
• Programming Languages and Language Processors
• Language Processing Activities
• Program Execution
• Fundamental of Language Processing
• Symbol Tables
• Data Structures for Language Processing: Search Data structures, Allocation
Data Structures.
Introduction
□ Language processor is a system program that bridges the gap between how a
user describes a computation (specification of computation) and how a
computer executes a program.

□ Language processing activities arise due to the difference between the manner
in which a software designer describes ideas concerning the behavior of a
software and the manner in which these ideas are implemented in a computer
system.
Some definitions…
▪ Semantic: It represents the rules of the meaning of the domain.
▪ Semantic gap: It represents the difference between the semantic of
two domains.
▪ Application domain: The designer expresses the ideas in terms related
to application domain of the software.
▪ Execution domain: To implement the ideas of designer, their description has
to be interpreted in terms related to the execution domain of computer
system.
Consequences of Semantic Gap

□ Large Development Time

□ Large Development Efforts

□ Poor Quality of Software

Semantic Gap

□ These issues are tackledthrough the useof programming

language (PL).

□ Software implementation using PL introduces a new domain as

PL domain.
Semantic Gap

□ Now the semantic gap is bridged by the software engineering steps.

□ The firststep bridges gap between application domain and PL
domain known as specification gap.
□ While the second step bridges the gap between PL domain and
execution domain as execution gap.
□ The specification gap is bridge by the software development team.
□ While the execution gap is bridged by the designer of the
programming language processor. Like compiler or interpreter.
□ PL domain reduces the difficulties of semantic gap mentioned
earlier.
□ The language processor also provides a diagnostics capability which
detects and indicates errors in its input. This helps in improving the
quality of the software.
Some definitions…
▪ Specification gap: The gap between application and Programming Language
domains is called specification and design gap or simply specification gap.
Specification gap is the semantic gap between two specifications of the same
task.
▪ Execution gap: The gap between programming language and execution
domains is called execution gap. Execution gap is the semantic gap between
the semantic of programs that perform the same task but written in different
programming language.
Example – Application
Domain
□ Designer of airline reservation application would like to think of
how the reservation data would be used by the query, book and
cancel operations, rather than how the data and operations should
be implemented in the machine language.
□ The description of the reservation data and the query, book
and cancel operations forms a specification of the application.
Example – Execution Domain
□ The system software of the computer has to help in
implementing this specification on the computer by using
its machine language; we say that the system software has
to implement this specification in the execution domain of
the computer system.
□ The entities in this domain are cells in memory and registers
in the CPU, and the operations are the instructions of the CPU
Example – Semantic Gap
□ Semantics : to represent the rules of meaning of a domain. For
example, the semantics of the applications domain of an airline
reservation system would govern the meaning of query, book
and cancel operations.
□ We use the term semantic gap to represent the difference
between the semantics of two domains.
Example
□ The above figure is an abstract view of the application and execution
domains and semantic gap between them.

□ The data of domain are represented by an oval shape while the

operations are represented by rectangular boxes.
□ We say a semantic gap is bridged when a specification in one of
the domains is converted into a specification in the other domain.
□ Achieved by software engineering- set of methodology for
effective software development
Semantic gap between domains
Semantic Gap
Semantic gap between domains

Specification Gap Execution Gap

Language Processors

□ Language processor: Language processor is a software which bridges a

specification or execution gap.

□ Language translator: Language translator for a programming language PLi

bridges an execution gap between PLi and machine language of a computer
system.

A language translator is called a cross translator if it bridges an execution gap to

the machine language of Ck but itself runs on some computer other than Ck.
Language Processors
• De-translator: It bridges the same execution gap as language translator, but in
the opposite direction.

• Preprocessor: It is a language processor which bridges an execution gap but is

not a language translator.

• Language migrator: It bridges the specification gap between two programming

languages.
Language Processors
• Interpreter: An interpreter is a language processor which bridges an execution
gap without generating a machine language program.

• Source language: The program which forms the input to a language processor is
a source program. The language in which the source program is written is
known source language.

• Target language: The output of a language processor is known as the target

program. The language, to which the target program belongs to, is called target
language.
Procedure v/s Problem Oriented Language
Procedure oriented PL Problem oriented PL

• Provides general purpose facilities • Programming language features

for declaring data & performing directly model the aspects of the
operations useful in most application domain, which leads to
application domains. very small specification gap.
• Independent of specific application • Such a programming language can
domains and results in a large only be used for specific
specification gap which has to be application; hence they are called
bridged by an application designer. problem oriented languages.
 Language processing activity
1. Program generation activities
– A program generation activity aims an automatic generation of a program.
– Program generator is a software, which accepts the specification of a
program and generates a program in target language that fulfills the
specification.
– Program generator introduces a new domain between the application
and programming language domain is called program generator domain.
Language processing activity
• A general purpose program generator

Errors

Definition of new Program in

operations & data
Program target
Program
generator language
specification
Program Generation activity
Advantages in Reduction in Specification
Gap
Specification Gap
Output of Screen Handling Program
Program Execution Activity

□ Program Execution activity reduces the Execution Gap.

□ A Program may be executed through Translation or interpretation.

Language processing activity
Program Translation
▪ Program Translation Characteristics
• A program must be translated before it can be executed.
• Translated program is saved in memory, so can be executed later without
the need of translation.
• If source program is modified then it must be
re-translated before execution.
A M/c Level Language Program
generated by translator is saved in
file and loaded in main memory and
executed whenever desired.(No
need to translate every time.)
Image source : Google
Language processing activity
2. Interpretation
• The interpreter reads the source program and stores it in its memory.
• The CPU uses the program counter (PC) to note the address of the next
instruction to be executed.
• The statement would be subjected to the interpretation
cycle, which consists of the following steps:
» Fetch the instruction.
» Analyze the statement and determine its meaning, the computation to be
performed and its operand.
» Execute the meaning of the statement.
Language processing activity
Interpretation
• The interpreter reads the source program and stores it in memory.
• The CPU uses the program counter (PC) to note the address of the next
instruction to execute
• Execution of program is perform by repeating the execution cycle.

Steps of Execution cycle

• Fetch the instructions
• Decode the instruction
• Perform the operation
Language processing activity
Schematics of Interpretation
The statement would be subjected to
the interpretation cycle, which
consists of the following steps:
» Fetch the instruction.
» the statement and
Analyze its meaning,
computation to be performed and
determine the
its operand.
» Execute the meaningof the
Image source : Google
statement.
Fundamental of language
processing
Language processing = Analysis of Source Program +
Synthesis of Target Program

Image source : Google

Fundamental of language
processing
▪ A specification of the source language forms the basis of source program
1. Lexical rules govern formation of valid lexical units in the source language.
2. Syntax rules govern formation of valid statements in the source language.
3. Semantic rules associate meanings with valid statements of the source
language.

Image source : Google

Analysis Phase

Image source : Google

Analysis Phase

Image source : Google

Analysis Phase
Analysis Phase
 Synthesis Phase
This consists of two main Activities

1. Creation of Data Structure in the Target Program (Memory

Allocation)

2. Generation of Target Code ( Code generation)

Synthesis Phase
Phases of language Processor
Analysis Phase
• Analysis phase uses each component of source language to determine relevant
information concerning a statement in the source statement
• Analysis of source statement consists of lexical, syntax and semantic analysis.
(Front end)

Synthesis phase
• synthesis phase is concerned with the construction of target language.
• Itincludes mainly two activitiesmemory allocation and code generation.
(Back end)
Phases of language Processor
Phases of language Processor
Phases of language Processor
Phases of language Processor
Phases of language Processor
Pass of Language Processor
❖ A Language Processor Pass is processing of every statement in the
source program to perform a Language Processing Activities.
□ Pass I
– Perform analysis of the source program and note relevant information.
– The first pass performs analysis of the source program and reflects its
results in the intermediate representation.

□ Pass II
– Perform synthesis of target program.
– The second pass reads and analyzes the intermediate representation
to perform synthesis of the target program.
Pass of Language Processor
Pass of Language Processor
Two-pass schematic of language
processor
Source Front Back Target
Program
Program End End

Intermediate
representation
(IR)
Intermediate representation (IR)
• An intermediate representation is a representation of a source program
which reflects the effect of some, but not all analysis and synthesis functions
performed during language processing.

• An IR properties,
– Ease of use
– Processing efficiency
– Memory efficiency
Front end of Language Processor

Front end of Language Processor

Image source : Google
Intermediate representation (IR)
• Output of front end – IR

• IR contains
1. Intermediate Code (which is the description of the source program).
2. Tables –Symbol Table
Symbol Table
Intermediate representation (IR)
Memory Allocation and Code Generation

Memory Allocation
▪ The back end computes the memory requirement of a variable from its
type, length and dimensionality information found in the symbol table and
allocates memory to it.

▪ The address of the allocated memory area is entered in the symbol table.
Code Generation
▪ Two key decisions involved in generating good quality target code are:
1. What instructions should be used for each of the
actions in the intermediate code?
2. Which CPU registers should be used for evaluating expressions ?
Back end of Language Processor

Back end of Language Processor

Image source : Google
Symbol Table

▪ An identifier used in the source program is called a symbol.

▪ Names of variables, functions and procedures are symbols.
▪ A language processor uses the symbol table to maintain the information
about attributes of symbols used in a source program
Symbol Table
▪ Language processor performs the following four kinds
of operations on the symbol table:
1. Add a symbol and its attributes: Make a new entry in the symbol table.
2. Locate a symbol’s entry: Find a symbol’s entry in the symbol table.
3. Delete a symbol’s entry: Remove the symbol’s information from the
table.
4. Access a symbol’s entry: Access the entry and set, modify or copy its
attribute information.
Symbol Table
Use of Symbol Table
• Symbol table information is used by the analysis and synthesis phases
• To verify that used identifiers have been defined (declared)
• To verify that expressions and assignments are semantically correct –
type checking
• To generate intermediate or target code

Image source : Google

References
1. System Programming by D M Dhamdhere McGraw Hill Publication
2. System Programming by Srimanta Pal OXFORD Publication
3.System Programming and Compiler Construction by R.K. Maurya &
A. Godbole.
www.paruluniversity.ac.in