5.
Semantic Analysis
Prof. O. Nierstrasz Jorge Ressia
Thanks to Jens Palsb erg and Tony Hosking for their kind p ermission to reuse and adap t the C S132 and C S502 lecture notes. http ://www.cs.ucla.edu/~p alsb erg/ http ://www.cs.p urdue.edu/homes/hosking/
Semantic Analysis
Roadmap
Context-sensitive analysis > Strategies for semantic analysis > Attribute grammars > Symbol tables and type-checking
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Roadmap
Context-sensitive analysis > Strategies for semantic analysis > Attribute grammars > Symbol tables and type-checking
>
Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Semantic Analysis
The compilation process is driven by the syntactic structure of the program as discovered by the parser Semantic routines:
interpret meaning of the program based on its syntactic structure two purposes:
nish analysis by deriving context-sensitive information begin synthesis by generating the IR or target code
associated with individual productions of a context free grammar or sub-trees of a syntax tree
Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Context-sensitive analysis
What context-sensitive questions might the compiler ask?
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Is x scalar, an array, or a function? Is x declared before it is used? Are any names declared but not used? Which declaration of x is being referenced? Is an expression type-consistent? Does the dimension of a reference match the declaration? Where can x be stored? (heap, stack, ...) Does *p reference the result of a malloc()? Is x dened before it is used? Is an array reference in bounds? Does function foo produce a constant value? Can p be implemented as a memo-function?
These questions cannot be answered with a context-free grammar
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Semantic Analysis
Context-sensitive analysis
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Why is context-sensitive analysis hard?
answers depend on values, not syntax questions and answers involve non-local information answers may involve computation
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Several alternatives:
abstract syntax tree (attribute grammars): specify non-local computations; automatic evaluators symbol tables: central store for facts; express checking code language design: simplify language; avoid problems
Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Roadmap
Context-sensitive analysis > Strategies for semantic analysis > Attribute grammars > Symbol tables and type-checking
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Alternatives for semantic processing
one-pass: compiler and synthesis two-pass: compiler + peephole two-pass: compiler & IR synthesis + code generation pass multi-pass analysis multi-pass synthesis language-independent and re-targetable compilers
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
One-pass compilers
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interleave scanning, parsing and translation
no explicit IR generate target code directly
emit short sequences of instructions on each parser action little or no optimization possible (minimal context)
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can add peephole optimization pass
extra pass over generated code through small window (peephole) of instructions smoothes out rough edges between code emitted by subsequent calls to code generator
Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Two-pass: analysis & IR synthesis + code generation
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Generate explicit IR as interface to code generator
linear (e.g., tuples) can emit multiple tuples at a time for better code context
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Advantages
easier retargeting (IR must be expressive enough for different machines!) can add optimization pass later (multi-pass synthesis)
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Semantic Analysis
Multi-pass analysis
Several passes, read/write intermediate les
1. scan source le, generate tokens
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place identiers and constants in symbol table generate semantic actions or linearized parse tree
2. parse token le 3. process declarations to symbol table 4. semantic checking with IR synthesis >
Motivations:
Historical: constrained address spaces Language: e.g., declaration after use Multiple analyses over IR tree
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Semantic Analysis
Multi-pass synthesis
Passes operate on linear or tree-structured IR > Options:
> code generation and peephole optimization multi-pass IR transformation
machine-independent then dependent optimizations e.g., in gcc high-level trees drive generation of low-level Register Transfer Language for machine-independent optimization
high-level to low-level IR transformation before code generation
language-independent front ends retargetable back ends
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Semantic Analysis
Roadmap
Context-sensitive analysis > Strategies for semantic analysis > Attribute grammars > Symbol tables and type-checking
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Oscar Nierstrasz
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Semantic Analysis
Attribute grammars
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Add attributes to the syntax tree:
can add attributes (elds) to each node specify equations to dene values propagate values up (synthesis) or down (inheritance)
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Example: ensuring that constants are immutable
add type and class attributes to expression nodes add rules to production for :=
check that LHS.class is variable 2. check that LHS.type and RHS.type are compatible
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Semantic Analysis
Attribute grammar actions
tree attributes specied by grammar > productions associated with attribute assignments > each attribute dened uniquely and locally > identical terms are labeled uniquely
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What is the problem with this?
nbncn a
Grammar Example
aaabbbccc
aaabbbbcc
Augmented Grammar
aaabbbccc
Not Valid any more!
Semantic Analysis
Example: evaluate signed binary numbers
Attributed parse tree for -101
val and neg are synthetic attributes pos is an inherited attribute
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Semantic Analysis
Attribute dependency graph
nodes represent attributes edges represent ow of values graph must be acyclic topologically sort to order attributes
use this order to evaluate rules order depends on both grammar and input string!
Evaluating in this order yields NUM.val = -5
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Semantic Analysis
Evaluation strategies
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Parse-tree methods
1. 2. 3. 4. build the parse tree build the dependency graph topologically sort the graph evaluate it
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Rule-based methods
1. analyse semantic rules at compiler-construction time 2. determine static ordering for each productions attributes 3. evaluate its attributes in that order at compile time
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Oblivious methods
1. ignore the parse tree and the grammar 2. choose a convenient order (e.g., left-to-right traversal) and use it 3. repeat traversal until no more attribute values can be generated
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Semantic Analysis
Attribute grammars in practice
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Advantages
clean formalism automatic generation of evaluator high-level specication
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Disadvantages
evaluation strategy determines efciency increase space requirements parse tree evaluators need dependency graph results distributed over tree circularity testing
Historically, attribute grammars have been judged too large and expensive for industrial-strength compilers.
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Semantic Analysis
Roadmap
Context-sensitive analysis > Strategies for semantic analysis > Attribute grammars > Symbol tables and type-checking
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Oscar Nierstrasz
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Semantic Analysis
Symbol tables
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For compile-time efciency, compilers often use a symbol table:
associates lexical names (symbols) with their attributes
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What items should be entered?
variable names dened constants procedure and function names literal constants and strings source text labels compiler-generated temporaries (well get there)
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Separate table for structure layouts (types) (eld offsets and lengths) A symbol table is a compile-time structure
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Semantic Analysis
Symbol table information
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What kind of information might the compiler need?
textual name data type dimension information (for aggregates) declaring procedure lexical level of declaration storage class (base address) offset in storage if record, pointer to structure table if parameter, by-reference or by-value? can it be aliased? to what other names? number and type of arguments to functions
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Nested scopes: block-structured symbol tables
What information is needed?
when we ask about a name, we want the most recent declaration the declaration may be from the current scope or some enclosing scope innermost scope overrides declarations from outer scopes
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Key point: new declarations (usually) occur only in current scope What operations do we need?
void put(Symbol key, Object value) bind key to value Object get(Symbol key) return value bound to key void beginScope() remember current state of table void endScope() restore table to state at most recent scope that has not been ended
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May need to preserve list of locals for the debugger
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Oscar Nierstrasz
Semantic Analysis
Attribute information
Attributes are internal representation of declarations > Symbol table associates names with attributes
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Names may have different attributes depending on their meaning:
variables: type, procedure level, frame offset types: type descriptor, data size/alignment constants: type, value procedures: formals (names/types), result type, block information (local decls.), frame size
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Semantic Analysis
Type expressions
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Type expressions are a textual representation for types:
1. basic types: boolean, char, integer, real, etc. 2. type names 3. constructed types (constructors applied to type expressions):
a) b) c) d) e)
array(I,T) denotes array of elements type T, index type I e.g., array (1...10,integer) T1 T2 denotes Cartesian product of type expressions T1 and T2 records: elds have names e.g., record((a integer), (b real)) pointer(T) denotes the type "pointer to object of type Tn D R denotes type of function mapping domain D to range R e.g., integer integer integer
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Semantic Analysis
Type descriptors
Type descriptors are compile-time structures representing type expressions e.g., char char pointer(integer)
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Semantic Analysis
Type compatibility
Type checking needs to determine type equivalence Two approaches: > Name equivalence: each type name is a distinct type > Structural equivalence: two types are equivalent iff they have the same structure (after substituting type expressions for type names)
s t iff s and t are the same basic types array(s1,s2) array(t1,t2) iff s1 t1 and s2 t2 s1 s2 t1 t2 iff s1 t1 and s2 t2 pointer(s) pointer (t) iff s t s1 s2 t1 t2 iff s1 t1 and s2 t2
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Semantic Analysis
Type compatibility: example
Consider:
type link = ^cell var next : link; last : link; p : ^cell; q, r : ^cell;
Under name equivalence:
next and last have the same type p, q and r have the same type p and next have different type
Under structural equivalence all variables have the same type Ada/Pascal/Modula-2 are somewhat confusing: they treat distinct type denitions as distinct types, so
p has different type from q and r (!)
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Semantic Analysis
Type compatibility: Pascal-style name equivalence
Build compile-time structure called a type graph: each constructor or basic type creates a node each name creates a leaf (associated with the types descriptor)
Type expressions are equivalent if they are represented by the same node in the graph
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Semantic Analysis
Type compatibility: recursive types
Consider:
type link = ^cell var cell = record info : integer; next : link; end
We may want to eliminate the names from the type graph Eliminating name link from type graph for record:
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Semantic Analysis
Type compatibility: recursive types
Allowing cycles in the type graph eliminates cell:
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JavaCC and JTB
What you should know!
Why is semantic analysis mostly context-sensitive? What is peephole optimization? Why was multi-pass semantic analysis introduced? What is an attribute grammar? How can it be used to support semantic analysis? What kind of information is stored in a symbol table? How is type-checking performed?
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JavaCC and JTB
Can you answer these questions?
Why can semantic analysis be performed by the parser? What are the pros and cons of introducing an IR? Why must an attribute dependency graph be acyclic? Why would be the use of a symbol table at run-time? Why does Java adopt nominal (name-based) rather than structural type rules?
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Semantic Analysis
License
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