System Programming and Compiler

Construction
CSC 602

Subject Incharge
Varsha Shrivastava
Assistant Professor
email: varshashrivastava@sfit.ac.in
Room No: 407

1
 CSC 602 System Programming and
Compiler Construction
Module 1
Introduction of System Software

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 2
 Course Outcomes
CO1: Identify the relevance of different system programs and also
distinguish different loaders and linkers, their contribution in
developing efficient user applications.
CO2: Analyze the various data structures and passes of assembler
design
CO3: Identify the need for different features and designing of macros.
CO4: Design Lexical Analyzer of a grammar.
CO5: Construct different parsers for given context free grammars.
CO6: Justify the need synthesis phase to produce object code
optimized in terms of high execution speed and less memory usage

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 3
 Text books to refer-

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 4
 Term work Distribution
• Lab work (experiments): 15 Marks
• Assignment: 05 Marks
• Attendance : 05 Marks
TOTAL 25 Marks
Final University Marks Distribution
• University final exam 80 Marks
• Internal Assessment 20 Marks
• Term work 25 Marks
• Practical exam 25 Marks
TOTAL 150 Marks
St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 5
 Contents as per syllabus

 Introduction
 Concept of System Software
 Goals of System Software
 System Program And System Programming
 Introduction to various system programs such as
Assembler, Macro processor, Loader, Linker,
Compiler, Interpreter, Device Drivers, Operating
system, Editors, Debuggers.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 6
Introduction to Language Processor

• A language processor is a software which bridges a

specification and execution gap.

• Language processing activities arise due to:

• The difference between software designer’s idea

related to behavior of software and the manner in
which these ideas are implemented.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 7
Introduction to Language Processor
• The designer expresses the ideas in terms related to
the application domain.
• To implement these ideas in terms related to execution
domain.
• The difference between the two domain termed as
semantic gap.

Semantic Gap

Application Execution
Domain Domain

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 8
Introduction to Language Processor

• The semantic gap has many difficulties, some of the

important ones being large development time and
efforts, and poor quality of software.
• These issues are tackled through the use of
programming language (PL).
• Software implementation using PL introduces a new
domain as PL domain.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 9
Introduction to Language Processor
• Now the semantic gap is bridged by the software
engineering steps.
• The first step bridges gap between application domain
and PL domain known as specification gap.
• While the second step bridges the gap between PL
domain and execution domain as execution gap.

Specification Gap Execution Gap

Application PL Execution
Domain Domain Domain

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 10
Introduction to Language Processor

• The specification gap is bridge by the software

development team.
• While the execution gap is bridged by the designer of
the programming language processor. Like compiler or
interpreter.
• PL domain reduces the difficulties of semantic gap
mentioned earlier.
• The language processor also provides a diagnostics
capability which detects and indicates errors in its
input. This helps in improving the quality of the
software.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 11
Introduction to Language Processor

A range of LP is defined to meet practical requirements.

1. A language translator bridges an execution gap to the
machine language like assembler and compiler.
2. A detranslator bridges the same as the language
translator, but in the reverse manner.
3. A preprocessor is a language processor which
bridges an execution gap but not translator.
4. A language migrator bridges specification gap
between two PLs.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 12
Language Processing Activities

The Language Processing activities can be divided into

those that bridge the specification gap and those that
bridge the execution gap.
There are two types of such activities :
1. Program Generation Activities
2. Program Execution Activities

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 13
Language Processing Activities

1. Program Generation Activities

Generates the target program in machine language by
accepting the specification of the source program

Program Program Program in Target

Specification Generator Language

Errors

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 14
Language Processing Activities

2. Program Execution Activities

Program execution is divided into 2 parts:

(a) Program Translation

(b) Program Interpretation

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 15
Language Processing Activities

2. Program Execution Activities

(a) Program Translation

DATA

M/C
Source Translator language Target
Program Program Program

Errors

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 16
Language Processing Activities

2. Program Execution Activities

(a) Program Translation :
This activity is used to convert source program into machine
code.
Features of the program translation:-
• Translation of program should be done before it is
executed.
• Translation of program should be saved for repetitive
execution.
• Retranslation of the program should be done if there are
any changes

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 17
Language Processing Activities

2. Program Execution Activities

(b) Program Interpretation :
Interpretation of program consists of following steps:
• The code is fetched.
• Analyze the code.
• Execute the meaning of the code.

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 18
 Introduction

What is System Program?

A program which directly interacts with the

hardware.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 19
 Introduction to System Software

• Software - the programs and other operating

information used by a computer.

• 2 types :
• Application Software
• System Software

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 20
 Software's

Software

Application Software System Software

Word OS
Processors
Compilers
Databases
Assemblers
Games
Utilities

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 21
 Application Software

• Application software is a set of one or more

programs designed to carry out operations for a
specific application.

• Application software cannot run on itself but is

dependent on system software to execute.

• Example : games, word processors, image

processors, etc.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 22
 System Software
• System software is computer software designed to
operate and control the computer hardware.

• It is used to provide a platform for running

application software.

• Example : compilers, assemblers, utilities, etc.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 23
 System Software

System Software

Program Develop Environment Run Time Environment

Text Editor Loader
Compiler
Libraries
Assembler
Dynamic Linker
Static Linker
Low level Debugger Operating System

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 24
System Software vs Application Software

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 25
 System Programs
• Operating Systems
• Device Drivers
• Compilers
• Preprocessor
• Interpreters
• Macro Processors
• Assemblers
• Linkers
• Loaders

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 26
 Operating System
• An operating system (OS) is software that manages
computer hardware and software resources and
provides common services for computer programs.

• The operating system is an essential component of

the system software in a computer system.

• Application programs usually require an operating

system to function.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 27
 Device Drivers

• A device driver is a program that controls a particular

type of device that is attached to your computer.

• There are device drivers for printers, displays, CD-

ROM readers, diskette drives, and so on.

• When you buy an operating system, many device

drivers are built into the product.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 28
 OS and Device drivers

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 29
 Compilers
• Preprocessors
• A tool that produces input for compilers.
• Deals with macro-processing, augmentation, file inclusion,
language extension, etc.

• Interpreters
• Similar to compilers (translates high-level language into low-
level machine language)
• An interpreter reads a statement from the input, converts it
to an intermediate code, executes it, then takes the next
statement in sequence.
• If an error occurs, an interpreter stops execution and reports
it.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 30
 Compilers

• Compiler is a program (or set of programs) that

translates a source code (high level language) into
machine understandable code (low level language).

Source Target
Program
COMPILER Program

Error messages

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 31
 Compilers

• A compiler reads the whole source code at once,

creates tokens, checks semantics, generates
intermediate code and executes the whole program

• May involve many passes.

• A compiler reads the whole program even if it

encounters several errors.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 32
 Interpreter vs Compiler
Interpreter Compiler
Translates program one statement at a Scans the entire program and translates it as
time. a whole into machine code.
It takes less amount of time to analyze It takes large amount of time to analyze the
the source code but the overall execution source code but the overall execution time is
time is slower. comparatively faster.
Generates intermediate object code which
No intermediate object code is
further requires linking, hence requires more
generated, hence are memory efficient.
memory.
Continues translating the program until It generates the error message only after
the first error is met, in which case it scanning the whole program. Hence
stops. Hence debugging is easy. debugging is comparatively hard.
Programming language like Python, Ruby Programming language like C, C++ use
use interpreters. compilers.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 33
 Macro Processors
• A macro instruction is a notational convenience for
the programmer.

• It allows the programmer to write shorthand

version of a program (module programming).

• The macro processor replaces each macro

invocation with the corresponding sequence of
statements (expanding).

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 34
 Macro Processors

• A macro processor can –

• Recognize macro definitions
• Save the macro definition
• Recognize macro calls
• Expand macro calls

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 35
 Assemblers
• An assembler translates assembly language
programs into machine code.

• The output of an assembler is called an object file.

• The object file contains the data required to place these
instructions in memory and information to enable
loader to prepare program for execution.

Source Assembly Object

Program
COMPILER code
ASSEMBLER Code

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 36
 Linkers

• Linker is a computer program that links and merges

various object files together in order to make an
executable file.

• The major task of a linker is to search and locate

referenced modules in a program and to determine
the memory location where these codes will be
loaded, making the program instruction to have
absolute references.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 37
 Linkers

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 38
 Loaders
• Loader is a part of operating system and is
responsible for loading executable files into
memory and execute them.

• It calculates the size of a program (instructions and

data) and creates memory space for it.

• It initializes various registers to initiate execution.

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 39
 Stages
Source Assembly
Program
COMPILER code
ASSEMBLER

Executabl Object
e Code
LINKER Code

Object
Program
LOADER ready for
execution

Memory

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 40
 Compilation steps

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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 41
 University Questions
 What is System Programming? List some system
programs and write their functions.
 Difference between Application and system
Software.
 Differentiate between application program and
system program . Indicate the order in which
following system programs are used, from
developing programs up to its execution.
Assembler, loader,linker,macroprocessor,compiler,
editor
 What is Language Processing? Explain Application,
PL & Execution domain.
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Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 42
 THE END!

Have a nice day!

St. Francis Institute of Technology 20 July 2020 CSC 602:System Programming & Compiler Construction
Department of Computer Engineering Ms. Varsha Shrivastava 43