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36 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Language implementation systems must |
analyze source code, regardless of the specific implementation approach |
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Nearly all syntax analysis is based |
on a formal description of the syntax of the source language (BNF) |
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Syntax Analysis |
• The syntax analysis portion of a language processor nearly always consists of two parts – A low-level part called a lexical analyzer (mathematically, a finite automaton based on a regular grammar) – A high-level part called a syntax analyzer, or parser (mathematically, a push-down automaton based on a context-free grammar, or BNF) |
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Advantages of Using BNF to Describe Syntax |
• Provides a clear and concise syntax description • The parser can be based directly on the BNF • Parsers based on BNF are easy to maintain |
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Reasons to Separate Lexical and Syntax Analysis |
Simplicity - less complex approaches can be used for lexical analysis; separating them simplifies the parser • Efficiency - separation allows optimization of the lexical analyzer • Portability - parts of the lexical analyzer may not be portable, but the parser always is portable |
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Lexical Analysis |
A lexical analyzer is a pattern matcher for character strings • A lexical analyzer is a “front-end” for the parser • Identifies substrings of the source program that belong together - lexemes – Lexemes match a character pattern, which is associated with a lexical category called a token – sum is a lexeme; its token may be IDENT |
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Lexical Analysis (continued) |
• The lexical analyzer is usually a function that is called by the parser when it needs the next token • Three approaches to building a lexical analyzer: – Write a formal description of the tokens and use a software tool that constructs a table-driven lexical analyzer from such a description – Design a state diagram that describes the tokens and write a program that implements the state diagram – Design a state diagram that describes the tokens and hand-construct a table-driven implementation of the state diagram |
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State Diagram Design |
– A naïve state diagram would have a transition from every state on every character in the source language - such a diagram would be very large! |
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• In many cases, transitions can be combined to simplify the state diagram |
– When recognizing an identifier, all uppercase and lowercase letters are equivalent • Use a character class that includes all letters – When recognizing an integer literal, all digits are equivalent - use a digit class |
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Reserved words and identifiers can |
be recognized together (rather than having a part of the diagram for each reserved word) – Use a table lookup to determine whether a possible identifier is in fact a reserved word |
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Convenient utility subprograms: |
– getChar - gets the next character of input, puts it in nextChar, determines its class and puts the class in charClass – addChar - puts the character from nextChar into the place the lexeme is being accumulated, lexeme – lookup - determines whether the string in lexeme is a reserved word (returns a code) |
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Lexical Analyzer |
Implementation: SHOW front.c (pp. 172-177) - Following is the output of the lexical analyzer of front.c when used on (sum + 47) / total |
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The Parsing Problem • Goals of the parser, given an input program: |
– Find all syntax errors; for each, produce an appropriate diagnostic message and recover quickly – Produce the parse tree, or at least a trace of the parse tree, for the program |
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The Parsing Problem (continued) • Two categories of parsers |
– Top down - produce the parse tree, beginning at the root • Order is that of a leftmost derivation • Traces or builds the parse tree in preorder – Bottom up - produce the parse tree, beginning at the leaves • Order is that of the reverse of a rightmost derivation • Useful parsers look only one token ahead in the input |
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The Parsing Problem (continued) • Top-down Parsers |
– Given a sentential form, xAα , the parser must choose the correct A-rule to get the next sentential form in the leftmost derivation, using only the first token produced by A • The most common top-down parsing algorithms: – Recursive descent - a coded implementation – LL parsers - table driven implementation |
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The Parsing Problem (continued) • Bottom-up parsers |
– Given a right sentential form, α, determine what substring of α is the right-hand side of the rule in the grammar that must be reduced to produce the previous sentential form in the right derivation – The most common bottom-up parsing algorithms are in the LR family |
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The Parsing Problem (continued) • The Complexity of Parsing |
– Parsers that work for any unambiguous grammar are complex and inefficient ( O(n3), where n is the length of the input ) – Compilers use parsers that only work for a subset of all unambiguous grammars, but do it in linear time ( O(n), where n is the length of the input ) |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing |
• There is a subprogram for each nonterminal in the grammar, which can parse sentences that can be generated by that nonterminal • EBNF is ideally suited for being the basis for a recursive-descent parser, because EBNF minimizes the number of nonterminals |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • Assume we have a lexical analyzer named lex, which puts the next token code in nextToken |
• The coding process when there is only one RHS: – For each terminal symbol in the RHS, compare it with the next input token; if they match, continue, else there is an error – For each nonterminal symbol in the RHS, call its associated parsing subprogram |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • This particular routine does not |
detect errors • Convention: Every parsing routine leaves the next token in nextToken |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • A nonterminal that has more than one RHS requires an initial process to determine which RHS it is to parse |
– The correct RHS is chosen on the basis of the next token of input (the lookahead) – The next token is compared with the first token that can be generated by each RHS until a match is found – If no match is found, it is a syntax error |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • The LL Grammar Class |
– The Left Recursion Problem • If a grammar has left recursion, either direct or indirect, it cannot be the basis for a top-down parser – A grammar can be modified to remove direct left recursion as follows: For each nonterminal, A, 1. Group the A-rules as A → Aα1 | … | Aαm | β1 | β2 | … | βn where none of the β‘s begins with A 2. Replace the original A-rules with A → β1A’ | β2A’ | … | βnA’ A’ → α1A’ | α2A’ | … | αmA’ | ε |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • The other characteristic of grammars that disallows top-down parsing is the |
lack of pairwise disjointness – The inability to determine the correct RHS on the basis of one token of lookahead – Def: FIRST(α) = {a | α =>* aβ } (If α =>* ε, ε is in FIRST(α))
where =>* means 0 or more derivation steps |
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Recursive-Descent Parsing (continued) • Pairwise Disjointness Test: |
– For each nonterminal, A, in the grammar that has more than one RHS, for each pair of rules, A → αi and A → αj , it must be true that FIRST(αi ) ⋂ FIRST(αj ) = φ • Example: A → a | bB | cAb A → a | aB |
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Bottom-up Parsing |
• The parsing problem is finding the correct RHS in a right-sentential form to reduce to get the previous right-sentential form in the derivation |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) •Intuition about handles: |
– Def: β is the handle of the right sentential form γ = αβw if and only if S =>*rm αAw =>rm αβw – Def: β is a phrase of the right sentential form γ if and only if S =>* γ = α1Aα2 =>+ α1βα2 – Def: β is a simple phrase of the right sentential form γ if and only if S =>* γ = α1Aα2 => α1βα2 |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • Intuition about handles (continued): |
– The handle of a right sentential form is its leftmost simple phrase – Given a parse tree, it is now easy to find the handle – Parsing can be thought of as handle pruning |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • Shift-Reduce Algorithms |
– Reduce is the action of replacing the handle on the top of the parse stack with its corresponding LHS – Shift is the action of moving the next token to the top of the parse stack |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • Advantages of LR parsers: |
– They will work for nearly all grammars that describe programming languages. – They work on a larger class of grammars than other bottom-up algorithms, but are as efficient as any other bottom-up parser. – They can detect syntax errors as soon as it is possible. – The LR class of grammars is a superset of the class parsable by LL parsers. |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • LR parsers must be |
constructed with a tool • Knuth’s insight: A bottom-up parser could use the entire history of the parse, up to the current point, to make parsing decisions – There are only a finite and relatively small number of different parse situations that could have occurred, so the history could be stored in a parser state, on the parse stack |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • An LR configuration stores the state of an LR parser |
(S0X1S1X2S2…XmSm, ai ai+1…an$) |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • LR parsers are table driven, where the table has two components |
an ACTION table and a GOTO table – The ACTION table specifies the action of the parser, given the parser state and the next token • Rows are state names; columns are terminals – The GOTO table specifies which state to put on top of the parse stack after a reduction action is done • Rows are state names; columns are nonterminals |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • Initial configuration: (S0, a1…an$) • Parser actions: |
– For a Shift, the next symbol of input is pushed onto the stack, along with the state symbol that is part of the Shift specification in the Action table – For a Reduce, remove the handle from the stack, along with its state symbols. Push the LHS of the rule. Push the state symbol from the GOTO table, using the state symbol just below the new LHS in the stack and the LHS of the new rule as the row and column into the GOTO table |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • Parser actions (continued): |
– For an Accept, the parse is complete and no errors were found. – For an Error, the parser calls an error-handling routine |
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Bottom-up Parsing (continued) • A parser table can be generated from |
a given grammar with a tool, e.g., yacc or bison |
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Chapter 4 summary |
• Syntax analysis is a common part of language implementation • A lexical analyzer is a pattern matcher that isolates small-scale parts of a program – Detects syntax errors – Produces a parse tree • A recursive-descent parser is an LL parser – EBNF • Parsing problem for bottom-up parsers: find the substring of current sentential form • The LR family of shift-reduce parsers is the most common bottom-up parsing approach |
