Control Flow Aspects of Semantics-Directed Compiling

Abstract

This paper is a demonstration of a semantics-directed compiler generator.We focus on the part of a compiler between syntax analysis and code generation.A language is specified by adding semantic rules in a functional notation to the syntax of the language.Starting with a small sublanguage of while statements, statement constructs of the C programming language are added in stages.Using a small ad hoc code generator, a compiler is automatically constructed from the semantics.The semantic description is analogous to a syntax-directed construction of a flow diagram for a program.By analogy with grammars and parser generators, minimal knowledge of the underlying theory is required.For the control flow aspects of languages, efficient compilers can quickly be generated.