Compiler Construction Course at University of Montenegro

1
Compiler Construction Course at University of
Montenegro

• 7th Workshop on Software Engineering Education
  and Reverse Engineering, Risan, 9 14. Sep.
  2007.

2
Agenda

• History
• Module structure
• Workload
• Learning outcomes
• Lectures and practicals
• Recommended books
• Future

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History (1)

• Started in 1988 professor Ratko Orlandic
• one-semester elective module for 4th year
  students, Mathematics and Computer Science
  programme
• 2 lectures 2 practicals per week
• From 1993 compulsory module

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History (2)

• 2001 first major revision
• one-semester compulsory module for 3rd year
  students, academic studies, Computer Science
  programme, Mathematics and Computer Science
  programme, and also applied studies
• 3 lectures 2 practicals per week
• 2006 new revision, 2 lectures 2 practicals, 5
  ECTS credits, starting in 2008

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Why to study compilers?

• The number of people who write compilers is
  small, so why is a module about compiler
  construction a compulsory part of a computer
  science course?
• One reason is that, though few graduates of the
  course will end up writing compilers, all will
  have to use them
• Many of the techniques used in compilers have
  application in other areas such as dialogue and
  human-computer interface design

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Module structure

• Number of ECTS credits 6
• Prerequisite knowledge
• Students must have a prior knowledge of
  programming in C
• Prerequisite modules
• Programming I
• Programming II

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Taken by

• academic studies, Computer Science programme
• academic studies, Mathematics and Computer
  Science programme
• applied studies, Information technologies
  programme

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Workload

• Lectures 14 x 2 hr 15 min lectures.
• Practicals 14 x 1 hr 30 min practical.
• Private study 74.5 hrs.
• Assessment
• Midterm 3 hours written exam (worth 35 marks)
• Final 3 hours written exam (worth 35 marks)
• Homeworks 6 HW (worth 4 marks each)
• Quizzes 3 quizzes (worth 2 marks each)

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Learning Outcomes (1)

• The aim of this module is to introduce the
  student to the theory and practice of programming
  language compilation
• It works through the front end of compilation
  lexical and syntax analysis. By the middle of the
  module the student will be in a position to write
  a lexical scanner and a parser for a context-free
  language, including the use of compiler tools
• Student will also have a solid understanding on
  the underlying theory of formal languages

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Learning Outcomes (2)

• Student should have a better appreciation of good
  programming practice in terms of program
  compilation
• Student should be able to describe compiler
  construction methods and algorithms, and
  especially apply them to examples
• Student be able to implement the "back end" of a
  compiler for a simple programming language using
  the techniques presented in the lectures

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Learning Outcomes (3)

• Student assess the advantages of standard
  programming language features with respect to
  their implementation and performance costs
• Student read critically a programming language
  specification

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Content Lectures (1)

• Introduction to compiling
• Automata. Regular expressions. Intro to lexical
  analysis
• Lexical analysis. Flex. Grammars and languages
• Top-down parsing
• Bottom-up parsing. LR(0), LR(1), and SLR(1)
• LALR parsers
• Syntax-directed translation

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Content Lectures (2)

• Semantical analysis. Type checking for imperative
  languages
• Run-time organization
• Object-oriented languages
• Intermediate languages
• Code generation
• Program analysis and transformation
• Dataflow analysis
• Loop optimization. Register allocation

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Content Practicals (1)

• DFA and NFA
• Regular expressions. Transforming regular
  expressions to NFA
• Transforming NFA to DFA. Minimizing number of
  states in DFA
• FLEX examples
• Writing and transforming context-free grammars

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Content Practicals (2)

• BISON examples
• Intermediate code examples
• Overview of MIPS
• Using SPIM
• Generating MIPS from AST

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Homeworks

• 1st HW Automata
• 2nd HW Flex for Decaf
• 3rd HW Grammars and languages
• 4th HW Building AST for Decaf using Bison
• 5th HW Semantic analyzer for Decaf
• 6th HW MIPS Code Generation

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Recommended Books

• Torczon, Cooper - Engineering a Compiler, Morgan
  Kaufmann 2002
• Aho A.V. et al. - Compilers Principles,
  Techniques and Tools, 2nd Edition, Addison Wesley
  2006
• Andrew W. Appel - Modern Compiler Implementation
  in C/Java/ML, Cambridge University Press
  1998/2002
• D Grune et al. - Modern Compiler Design, Wiley
  2000

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Teaching Materials

• Notes and exercise sheets are provided
• Copies of slides and examples used in lectures
  can be downloaded from the module web page
• Information and feedback are posted on the module
  web pages (www.pmf.cg.ac.yu)

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Students (2006-7)
Bologna students Non Bologna
20 students, 14 passed, A 0 B 3 C 3 D 2 E 6 F 6 26 students, 12 passed 10 0 9 0 8 1 7 6 6 5 5 14
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Student' remarks

• Practicals/exams/lecturer are too demanding
• Programming in C is very hard
• I need more time for homeworks
• I don't know how to use pointers in C... read
  data from files ... start Flex ...

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Future

• From 2008
• Substantial reduction of lectures
• Less demanding homeworks
• Using Java instead C
• Using JLex and JBison instead Flex and Bison
• MIPS or x86 or ...
• More information
• www.pmf.cg.ac.yu
• compilers_at_rc.pmf.cg.ac.yu