Formal Languages and Compilation

This classroom-tested and clearly-written textbook presents a focused guide to the conceptual foundations of compilation, explaining the fundamental principles and algorithms used for defining the syntax of languages, and for implementing simple translators.

This significantly updated and expanded third edition has been enhanced with additional coverage of regular expressions, visibly pushdown languages, bottom-up and top-down deterministic parsing algorithms, and new grammar models.

Topics and features: describes the principles and methods used in designing syntax-directed applications such as parsing and regular expression matching; covers translations, semantic functions (attribute grammars), and static program analysis by data flow equations; introduces an efficient method for string matching and parsing suitable for ambiguous regular expressions (NEW); presents a focus on extended BNF grammars with their general parser and with LR(1) and LL(1) parsers (NEW); introduces a parallel parsing algorithm that exploits multiple processing threads to speed up syntax analysis of large files; discusses recent formal models of input-driven automata and languages (NEW); includes extensive use of theoretical models of automata, transducers and formal grammars, and describes all algorithms in pseudocode; contains numerous illustrative examples, and supplies a large set of exercises with solutions at an associated website.

Advanced undergraduate and graduate students of computer science will find this reader-friendly textbook to be an invaluable guide to the essential concepts of syntax-directed compilation. The fundamental paradigms of language structures are elegantly explained in terms of the underlying theory, without requiring the use of software tools or knowledge of implementation, and through algorithms simple enough to be practiced by paper and pencil.

This fully revised and expanded new edition elucidates the elegance and simplicity of the fundamental theory underlying Formal Languages and Compilation.

Retaining the reader-friendly, minimalist style of the first edition, this uniquely versatile textbook describes the essential principles and methods used for defining the syntax of artificial languages, and for designing efficient parsing algorithms and syntax-directed translators with semantic attributes. A comprehensive selection of topics is presented within a rigorous, unified framework, illustrated by numerous practical examples.

Features and topics: presents a novel conceptual approach to parsing algorithms that applies to extended BNF grammars, together with a parallel parsing algorithm (NEW); supplies supplementary teaching tools, including course slides and exercises with solutions, at an associated website; unifies the concepts and notations used in different approaches, enabling an extended coverage of methods with a reduced number of definitions; systematically discusses ambiguous forms, allowing readers to avoid pitfalls when designing grammars; describes all algorithms in pseudocode, so that detailed knowledge of a specific programming language is not necessary; makes extensive usage of theoretical models of automata, transducers and formal grammars; includes concise coverage of algorithms for processing regular expressions and finite automata; introduces static program analysis based on flow equations.

This clearly-written, classroom-tested textbook is an ideal guide to the fundamentals of this field for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and computer engineering. Some background in programming is required, and readers should also be familiar with basic set theory, algebra and logic.

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