Outline

 Role of lexical analyzer

 Input Buffering
 Specification of tokens
 Recognition of tokens
 Lexical analyzer generator
 Finite automata
 Design of lexical analyzer generator
 The role of lexical analyzer
token
Source Lexical To semantic
program Parser analysis
Analyzer
getNextToken

Symbol
table
Why to separate Lexical analysis
and parsing
1. Simplicity of design
2. Improving compiler efficiency
3. Enhancing compiler portability
Tokens, Patterns and Lexemes
 A token is a pair a token name and an optional token
value
 A pattern is a description of the form that the lexemes
of a token may take
 A lexeme is a sequence of characters in the source
program that matches the pattern for a token
Example
Token Informal description Sample lexemes
if Characters i, f if
else Characters e, l, s, e else
comparison < or > or <= or >= or == or != <=, !=

id Letter followed by letter and digits pi, score, D2

number Any numeric constant 3.14159, 0, 6.02e23
literal Anything but “ sorrounded by “ “core dumped”

printf(“total = %d\n”, score);

Attributes for tokens
 E = M * C ** 2
 <id, pointer to symbol table entry for E>
 <assign-op>
 <id, pointer to symbol table entry for M>
 <mult-op>
 <id, pointer to symbol table entry for C>
 <exp-op>
 <number, integer value 2>
Lexical errors
 Some errors are out of power of lexical analyzer to
recognize:
 fi (a == f(x)) …
 However it may be able to recognize errors like:
 d = 2r
 Such errors are recognized when no pattern for tokens
matches a character sequence
Error recovery
 Panic mode: successive characters are ignored until we
reach to a well formed token
 Delete one character from the remaining input
 Insert a missing character into the remaining input
 Replace a character by another character
 Transpose two adjacent characters
Input buffering
 Sometimes lexical analyzer needs to look ahead one or
more symbols to decide about the current token.
 In C language: we need to look after -, = or < to decide
what token to return
 We need to introduce a two buffer scheme to handle
large look-aheads safely

E = M * C * * 2 eof
Sentinels
E = M eof * C * * 2 eof eof
Switch (*forward++) {
case eof:
if (forward is at end of first buffer) {
reload second buffer;
forward = beginning of second buffer;
}
else if {forward is at end of second buffer) {
reload first buffer;\
forward = beginning of first buffer;
}
else /* eof within a buffer marks the end of input */
terminate lexical analysis;
break;
cases for the other characters;
}
Specification of tokens
 In theory of compilation regular expressions are used
to formalize the specification of tokens
 Regular expressions are means for specifying regular
languages
 Example:
 Letter_(letter_ | digit)*
 Each regular expression is a pattern specifying the
form of strings
Regular expressions
 Ɛ is a regular expression, L(Ɛ) = {Ɛ}
 If a is a symbol in ∑then a is a regular expression, L(a)
= {a}
 (r) | (s) is a regular expression denoting the language
L(r) ∪ L(s)
 (r)(s) is a regular expression denoting the language
L(r)L(s)
 (r)* is a regular expression denoting (L9r))*
 (r) is a regular expression denting L(r)
Regular definitions
d1 -> r1
d2 -> r2
…
dn -> rn

 Example:
letter_ -> A | B | … | Z | a | b | … | Z | _
digit -> 0 | 1 | … | 9
id -> letter_ (letter_ | digit)*
Extensions
 One or more instances: (r)+
 Zero of one instances: r?
 Character classes: [abc]

 Example:
 letter_ -> [A-Za-z_]
 digit -> [0-9]
 id -> letter_(letter|digit)*
Recognition of tokens
 The next step is to formalize the patterns:
digit -> [0-9]
Digits -> digit+
number -> digit(.digits)? (E[+-]? Digit)?

letter -> [A-Za-z_]

id -> letter (letter|digit)*

Relop -> < | > | <= | >= | = | <>

 We also need to handle whitespaces:
ws -> (blank | tab | newline)+
Transition diagrams
 Transition diagram for relop
Transition diagrams
 Transition diagram for reserved words and identifiers
Transition diagrams
 Transition diagram for unsigned numbers
Transition diagrams
 Transition diagram for whitespace
Architecture of a transition-
diagram-based lexical analyzer
TOKEN getRelop()
{
TOKEN retToken = new (RELOP)
while (1) { /* repeat character processing until a
return or failure occurs */
switch(state) {
case 0: c= nextchar();
if (c == ‘<‘) state = 1;
else if (c == ‘=‘) state = 5;
else if (c == ‘>’) state = 6;
else fail(); /* lexeme is not a relop */
break;
case 1: …
…
case 8: retract();
retToken.attribute = GT;
return(retToken);
}
Lexical Analyzer Generator - Lex
Lex Source program Lexical lex.yy.c
lex.l Compiler

lex.yy.c
C a.out
compiler

Sequence
Input stream a.out
of tokens
Structure of Lex programs

Declarations
%%
Translation rules Pattern {Action}
%%
Auxiliary functions
Example
%{
Int installID() {/* funtion to install the
/* definitions of manifest constants
lexeme, whose first character is
LT, LE, EQ, NE, GT, GE, pointed to by yytext, and whose
IF, THEN, ELSE, ID, NUMBER, RELOP */ length is yyleng, into the symbol
%} table and return a pointer thereto
*/
/* regular definitions }
delim [ \t\n]
ws {delim}+ Int installNum() { /* similar to
installID, but puts numerical
letter [A-Za-z]
constants into a separate table */
digit [0-9]
}
id {letter}({letter}|{digit})*
number {digit}+(\.{digit}+)?(E[+-]?{digit}+)?

%%
{ws} {/* no action and no return */}
if {return(IF);}
then {return(THEN);}
else {return(ELSE);}
{id} {yylval = (int) installID(); return(ID); }
{number} {yylval = (int) installNum(); return(NUMBER);}
…
Finite Automata
 Regular expressions = specification
 Finite automata = implementation

 A finite automaton consists of

 An input alphabet 
 A set of states S
 A start state n
 A set of accepting states F  S
 A set of transitions state input state

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Finite
 A state
Automata State Graphs

• The start state

• An accepting state

a
• A transition

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A ASimple Example
finite automaton that accepts only “1”

 A finite automaton accepts a string if we can follow

transitions labeled with the characters in the string
from the start to some accepting state

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Another Simple Example
 A finite automaton accepting any number of 1’s
followed by a single 0
 Alphabet: {0,1}

 Check that “1110” is accepted but “110…” is not

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Epsilon Moves
 Another kind of transition: -moves

A B

• Machine can move from state A to state B

without reading input

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Execution of Finite Automata
 A DFA can take only one path through the state graph
 Completely determined by input

 NFAs can choose

 Whether to make -moves
 Which of multiple transitions for a single input to take

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Acceptance of NFAs
 An NFA can get into multiple states
1

0 1

• Input: 1 0 1

• Rule: NFA accepts if it can get in a final state

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NFA vs. DFA (1)
 NFAs and DFAs recognize the same set of languages
(regular languages)

 DFAs are easier to implement

 There are no choices to consider

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NFA vs. DFA (2)
 For a given language the NFA can be simpler than the
DFA
1
0 0
NFA
0

1 0
0 0
DFA
1
1

• DFA can be exponentially larger than NFA

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Implementation
 A DFA can be implemented by a 2D table T
 One dimension is “states”
 Other dimension is “input symbols”
 For every transition Si a Sk define T[i,a] = k
 DFA “execution”
 If in state Si and input a, read T[i,a] = k and skip to state
Sk
 Very efficient

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