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4.3 Error Detection and Recovery

The document discusses syntax error handling in compilers, emphasizing the importance of assisting programmers in locating and recovering from errors. It outlines various types of programming errors, challenges in error handling, and several error recovery strategies, such as panic mode recovery and phrase-level recovery. The document also highlights the concept of error productions and global corrections, noting their advantages and drawbacks.

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1 views

4.3 Error Detection and Recovery

The document discusses syntax error handling in compilers, emphasizing the importance of assisting programmers in locating and recovering from errors. It outlines various types of programming errors, challenges in error handling, and several error recovery strategies, such as panic mode recovery and phrase-level recovery. The document also highlights the concept of error productions and global corrections, noting their advantages and drawbacks.

Uploaded by

nikhil.2226cse1108
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Syntax Error Handling

● Next few lectures will focus on the nature of syntactic


errors and general strategies for error-recovery.
● If a compiler had to process only correct programs, its
design would be extremely simple. However it is expected
to Assist the programmer in locating and tracking errors.
● One should note that a programming language does not
specify how a compiler should respond to errors. It is
actually left entirely to the compiler designer.
Review: Common Programming
Errors
■ Semantic Errors: Type mismatches between operators
and operands. Like, a return statements with return type
void.
■ Syntactic Errors: Misplaced semicolons, extra or missing
braces.
■ Lexical errors: Misspellings of keywords, identifiers, and
operators.
■ Logical Errors : Incorrect reasoning or plain carelessness
might result in errors like interchangeably using = and ==
operators.
Challenges of Error Handling
Viable-Fixable property: detecting an error as soon as a
prefix of the input cannot be completed to form a
string of the language.
Goals of an Error Handler:
● Reporting presence of errors, clearly and accurately.
● Recovering from errors quickly enough to detect
subsequent errors.
● Add minimal overhead to the processing of correct
programs.
Error recovery
● There is no universally acceptable method.
● The simplest method is for the parser to quit with the
appropriate error message, at the first instance of an
error.
● Problem? Subsequent errors will not be detected.
● Solution? If the parser can restore itself to a state
where processing can continue, future errors can be
detected.
● In some cases compiler stops if errors pileup.
Error Recovery Strategies
● Panic Mode Recovery: The parser discovers an error.
It then discards input symbols till a designated set of
synchronizing token is found.
● Synchronizing tokens selected are such that their role
in the program is unambiguous, like Delimiters ; }
etc.
● Advantage: Simple and never goes into an infinite
loop.
● Drawback: Skips considerable amount of input when
checking for additional errors
Phrase-level Recovery
● Local Correction by parser on remaining input, by
some string which allows parser to continue.
● Replacing comma by semicolon, inserting extra
semicolon etc.
● Drawbacks: Improper replacement might lead to
infinite loops. More importantly, if the error has
occurred before the point of detection.
● Advantage: It can correct any input string.
Error Productions
● A method of anticipating common errors that might
be encountered.
● Augmenting the grammar for the language at hand,
with productions that generate erroneous constructs.
● Such a parser will detect anticipated errors when an
error production is used.
● Advantage: Error diagnostics will be readily available
for such anticipated errors.
Global Corrections

● Ideally minimum changes should be made to the


input string.
● Given an input string x, algorithm finds parse tree for
a related string y, such that number of insertions,
deletions, and token changes required for converting
x to y is minimum.
● Drawback: Too costly to implement in terms of both
time and space, and only theoretical.
● It is however used as a yardstick for evaluating error-
recovery techniques.

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