Compiler Design (CD)

GTU # 2170701

Unit – 4
Error Recovery

Computer Engineering Department

Errors

Compile time Run time

Lexical Syntactic Semantic

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 4
Lexical error
 Lexical errors can be detected during lexical analysis phase.
 Typical lexical phase errors are:
1. Spelling errors
2. Exceeding length of identifier or numeric constants
3. Appearance of illegal characters
 Example:
fi ( )
{
}
 In above code 'fi' cannot be recognized as a misspelling of keyword if rather lexical analyzer
will understand that it is an identifier and will return it as valid identifier.
 Thus misspelling causes errors in token formation.

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 5
Syntax error
 Syntax error appear during syntax analysis phase of compiler.
 Typical syntax phase errors are:
1. Errors in structure
2. Missing operators
3. Unbalanced parenthesis
 The parser demands for tokens from lexical analyzer and if the tokens do not satisfy the
grammatical rules of programming language then the syntactical errors get raised.
 Example:

printf(“Hello World !!!”) Error: Semicolon missing

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 6
Semantic error
 Semantic error detected during semantic analysis phase.
 Typical semantic phase errors are:
1. Incompatible types of operands
2. Undeclared variable
3. Not matching of actual argument with formal argument
 Example:
id1=id2+id3*60 (Note: id1, id2, id3 are real)
(Directly we can not perform multiplication due to incompatible types of variables)

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 7
Error recovery strategies (Ad-Hoc & systematic methods)
 There are mainly four error recovery strategies:
1. Panic mode
2. Phrase level recovery
3. Error production
4. Global generation

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 9
Panic mode
 In this method on discovering error, the parser discards input symbol one at a time. This
process is continued until one of a designated set of synchronizing tokens is found.
 Synchronizing tokens are delimiters such as semicolon or end.
 These tokens indicate an end of the statement.
 If there is less number of errors in the same statement then this strategy is best choice.

fi ( ) Scan entire line otherwise scanner will return fi as valid identifier

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 10
Phrase level recovery
 In this method, on discovering an error parser performs local correction on remaining input.
 The local correction can be replacing comma by semicolon, deletion of semicolons or inserting
missing semicolon.
 This type of local correction is decided by compiler designer.
 This method is used in many error-repairing compilers.

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 11
Error production
 If we have good knowledge of common errors that might be encountered, then we can augment
the grammar for the corresponding language with error productions that generate the
erroneous constructs.
 Then we use the grammar augmented by these error production to construct a parser.
 If error production is used then, during parsing we can generate appropriate error message and
parsing can be continued.

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 12
Global correction
 Given an incorrect input string x and grammar G, the algorithm will find a parse tree for a
related string y, such that number of insertions, deletions and changes of token require to
transform x into y is as small as possible.
 Such methods increase time and space requirements at parsing time.
 Global correction is thus simply a theoretical concept.

Prof. Jay
Dixita
RBDhamsaniya
Kagathara #3130006
#2170701(PS)
(CD)  Unit
Unit1 4––Basic
ErrorProbability
Recovery 13