Syntax Analysis (Parsing)
The chapter delves into Syntax Analysis, or Parsing, which is a critical phase of a compiler that checks the grammar of the source code after it has been tokenized. It introduces Context-Free Grammars (CFG) as the framework for defining the syntax of programming languages, explaining the parsing process, including parse trees and abstract syntax trees. Additionally, it discusses ambiguity in grammars and various parsing strategies, leading to rich insights into bottom-up parsing methods like Shift-Reduce parsing.
Sections
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What we have learnt
- Context-Free Grammars (CFG) provide a formal method to define syntactical structure.
- Parsing verifies that the arrangement of tokens follows grammatical rules, producing either parse trees or abstract syntax trees.
- Ambiguous grammars can lead to multiple interpretations of syntactically correct code.
Key Concepts
- -- ContextFree Grammar (CFG)
- A formalism for defining the syntax of languages through variables, terminals, production rules, and a start symbol.
- -- Parse Tree
- A detailed representation of the syntactic structure of sentences in terms of CFG, showing all steps of derivation.
- -- Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)
- A condensed version of the parse tree that focuses only on the essential elements of the program's meaning.
- -- Ambiguous Grammar
- A grammar that allows for more than one unique parse tree for at least one string, leading to potential interpretational ambiguity.
- -- TopDown Parsing
- A parsing approach that starts from the root and breaks down the structure to match input tokens, often using leftmost derivation.
- -- BottomUp Parsing
- A parsing technique that begins with input tokens, combining them into larger structures until the start symbol is formed, typically using rightmost derivation.
Additional Learning Materials
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