Re: Compiler Creator with IDE or similar.

"Ira Baxter" <idbaxter@semdesigns.com>
31 Dec 2004 13:04:34 -0500

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Related articles
Compiler Creator with IDE or similar. juoke@katamail.com (2004-12-30)
Re: Compiler Creator with IDE or similar. idbaxter@semdesigns.com (Ira Baxter) (2004-12-31)
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From: "Ira Baxter" <idbaxter@semdesigns.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 31 Dec 2004 13:04:34 -0500
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com
References: 04-12-171
Keywords: tools
Posted-Date: 31 Dec 2004 13:04:33 EST

"Juoke" <juoke@katamail.com> wrote in message
> I need a tool to obtain a portable compiler (e.g. a standard c++ set
> of file could be good) that takes an input file and generates an
> output one with a bytecode description.
>
> I know there are dozens of tools and so on... but I have complex
> grammars (not just one) and so I want to focus on my work of analysis
> and not on the task of building files here and there. A good solution
> would be an IDE where I can edit my language and have the compiler
> generated (like the good GOLD PARSER, but it doesn't generate anything
> - and you can't extend the definition with semantic actions).


Complex grammars often means you need sophisticated parsing
technology. But more imporantly, there's a lot of life beyond just
parsing; a plain parsing engine only solves a smalll part of your
problem. You also need to define how names are resolved (symbol
tables) and what the types of operands (type inference) are.


You may want to do, in effect, source-level optimizations before you
generate code. Then you need to generate code. Even with byte-code
descriptions, you will probably want some special case (e.g.,
peephole) optimizations.


If you want to do this for multiple languages, you need a tool that
can handle multiple langauges easily, and help you with all of the
above tasks.


The DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit comes pretty close. It has
specific support for all the tasks listed above except the final code
generator; you'll have to code your own custom byte-code generators if
you want binary output. If you are willing to settle for source code
output of (e.g., psuedo assembler for your byte codes), then DMS has
ways for you to encode the translation from the source code level to
the object-code level. See
http://www.semanticdesigns.com/Products/DMS/DMSToolkit.html.


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