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Compiler Construction Tools


The compiler writer, like any software developer, can profitably use modern software development environments containing tools such as language editors, debuggers, version managers, profilers, test harnesses, and so on. In addition to these general software-development tools, other more specialized tools have been created to help implement various phases of a compiler.



The most successful tools are those that hide the details of the generation algorithm and produce components that can be easily integrated into the remainder of the compiler. Some commonly used compiler-construction tools include:

1. Parser generators that automatically produce syntax analyzers from a grammatical description of a programming language.
2.  Scanner generators that produce lexical analyzers from a regular-expression description of the tokens of a language.
3. Syntax-directed translation engines that produce collections of routines for walking a parse tree and generating intermediate code.
4.  Code-generator generators that produce a code generator from a collection of rules for translating each operation of the intermediate language into the machine language for a target machine.
5. Data-flow analysis engines that facilitate the gathering of information about how values are transmitted from one part of a program to each other part. Data-flow analysis is a key part of code optimization.
6. Compiler-construction toolkits that provide an integrated set of routines for constructing various phases of a compiler

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