Learning to write a compiler

Question

Preferred languages  C C    Java  and Ruby   I am looking for some helpful books tutorials on how to write your own compiler simply for educational purposes  I am most familiar with C C    Java  and Ruby  so I prefer resources that involve one of those three  but any good resource is acceptable

User · Answer

You can use BCEL by the Apache Software Foundation. With this tool you can generate assembler-like code, but it's Java with the BCEL API. You can learn how you can generate intermediate language code (in this case byte code).

Simple example

Create a Java class with this function:

public String maxAsString(int a, int b) {
    if (a > b) {
        return Integer.valueOf(a).toString();
    } else if (a < b) {
        return Integer.valueOf(b).toString();
    } else {
        return "equals";
    }
}

Now run BCELifier with this class

BCELifier bcelifier = new BCELifier("MyClass", System.out);
bcelifier.start();

You can see the result on the console for the whole class (how to build byte code MyClass.java). The code for the function is this:

private void createMethod_1() {
  InstructionList il = new InstructionList();
  MethodGen method = new MethodGen(ACC_PUBLIC, Type.STRING, new Type[] { Type.INT, Type.INT }, new String[] { "arg0", "arg1" }, "maxAsString", "MyClass", il, _cp);

  il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 1)); // Load first parameter to address 1
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 2)); // Load second parameter to adress 2
    BranchInstruction if_icmple_2 = InstructionFactory.createBranchInstruction(Constants.IF_ICMPLE, null); // Do if condition (compare a > b)
  il.append(if_icmple_2);
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 1)); // Load value from address 1 into the stack
  il.append(_factory.createInvoke("java.lang.Integer", "valueOf", new ObjectType("java.lang.Integer"), new Type[] { Type.INT }, Constants.INVOKESTATIC));
  il.append(_factory.createInvoke("java.lang.Integer", "toString", Type.STRING, Type.NO_ARGS, Constants.INVOKEVIRTUAL));
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createReturn(Type.OBJECT));
  InstructionHandle ih_13 = il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 1));
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 2));
    BranchInstruction if_icmpge_15 = InstructionFactory.createBranchInstruction(Constants.IF_ICMPGE, null); // Do if condition (compare a < b)
  il.append(if_icmpge_15);
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createLoad(Type.INT, 2));
  il.append(_factory.createInvoke("java.lang.Integer", "valueOf", new ObjectType("java.lang.Integer"), new Type[] { Type.INT }, Constants.INVOKESTATIC));
  il.append(_factory.createInvoke("java.lang.Integer", "toString", Type.STRING, Type.NO_ARGS, Constants.INVOKEVIRTUAL));
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createReturn(Type.OBJECT));
  InstructionHandle ih_26 = il.append(new PUSH(_cp, "equals")); // Return "equals" string
  il.append(InstructionFactory.createReturn(Type.OBJECT));
  if_icmple_2.setTarget(ih_13);
  if_icmpge_15.setTarget(ih_26);
  method.setMaxStack();
  method.setMaxLocals();
  _cg.addMethod(method.getMethod());
  il.dispose();
}

User · Answer

I liked the Crenshaw tutorial too  because it makes it absolutely clear that a compiler is just another program that reads some input and writes some out put    Read it    Work it if you want  but then look at another reference on how bigger and more complete compilers are really written   And read On Trusting Trust  to get a clue about the unobvious things that can be done in this domain

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An easy way to create a compiler is to use bison and flex  or similar   build a tree  AST  and generate code in C  With generating C code being the most important step  By generating C code  your language will automatically work on all platforms that have a C compiler   Generating C code is as easy as generating HTML  just use print  or equivalent   which in turn is much easier than writing a C parser or HTML parser

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Take a look at the book below  The author is the creator of ANTLR   Language Implementation Patterns  Create Your Own Domain-Specific and General Programming Languages

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I concur with the Dragon Book reference  IMO  it is the definitive guide to compiler construction  Get ready for some hardcore theory  though   If you want a book that is lighter on theory  Game Scripting Mastery might be a better book for you  If you are a total newbie at compiler theory  it provides a gentler introduction  It doesn t cover more practical parsing methods  opting for non-predictive recursive descent without discussing LL or LR parsing   and as I recall  it doesn t even discuss any sort of optimization theory  Plus  instead of compiling to machine code  it compiles to a bytecode that is supposed to run on a VM that you also write   It s still a decent read  particularly if you can pick it up for cheap on Amazon  If you only want an easy introduction into compilers  Game Scripting Mastery is not a bad way to go  If you want to go hardcore up front  then you should settle for nothing less than the Dragon Book

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Missing from the list  Garbage Collection  Algorithms for Automatic Dynamic Memory Management  by Jones and Lins    Assuming you re writing the compiler and runtime system  and that you re implementing a garbage collected language

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This is a pretty vague question  I think  just because of the depth of the topic involved   A compiler can be decomposed into two separate parts  however  a top-half and a bottom-one   The top-half generally takes the source language and converts it into an intermediate representation  and the bottom half takes care of the platform specific code generation   Nonetheless  one idea for an easy way to approach this topic  the one we used in my compilers class  at least  is to build the compiler in the two pieces described above   Specifically  you ll get a good idea of the entire process by just building the top-half   Just doing the top half lets you get the experience of writing the lexical analyzer and the parser and go to generating some  code   that intermediate representation I mentioned    So it will take your source program and convert it to another representation and do some optimization  if you want   which is the heart of a compiler   The bottom half will then take that intermediate representation and generate the bytes needed to run the program on a specific architecture   For example  the the bottom half will take your intermediate representation and generate a PE executable     Some books on this topic that I found particularly helpful was Compilers Principles and Techniques  or the Dragon Book  due to the cute dragon on the cover    It s got some great theory and definitely covers Context-Free Grammars in a really accessible manner   Also  for building the lexical analyzer and parser  you ll probably use the  nix tools lex and yacc   And uninterestingly enough  the book called  lex and yacc  picked up where the Dragon Book left off for this part

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Let s Build a Compiler        I d second http   compilers iecc com crenshaw  by  sasb  Forget buying more books for the moment   Why   Tools  amp  language    The language required is Pascal and if I remember correctly is based on Turbo-Pascal  It just so happens if you go to http   www freepascal org  and download the Pascal compiler all the examples work straight from the page   http   www freepascal org download var The beaut thing about Free Pascal is you can use it almost whatever processor or OS you can care for    Once you have mastered the lessons then try the more advanced  Dragon Book    http   en wikipedia org wiki Dragon book

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Generally speaking  there s no five minutes tutorial for compilers  because it s a complicated topic and writing a compiler can take months  You will have to do your own search   Python and Ruby are usually interpreted  Perhaps you want to start with an interpreter as well  It s generally easier   The first step is to write a formal language description  the grammar of your programming language  Then you have to transform the source code that you want to compile or interpret according to the grammar into an abstract syntax tree  an internal form of the source code that the computer understands and can operate on  This step is usually called parsing and the software that parses the source code is called a parser  Often the parser is generated by a parser generator which transform a formal grammar into source oder machine code  For a good  non-mathematical explanation of parsing I recommend Parsing Techniques - A Practical Guide  Wikipedia has a comparison of parser generators from which you can choose that one that is suitable for you  Depending on the parser generator you chose  you will find tutorials on the Internet and for really popular parser generators  like GNU bison  there are also books   Writing a parser for your language can be really hard  but this depends on your grammar  So I suggest to keep your grammar simple  unlike C     a good example for this is LISP   In the second step the abstract syntax tree is transformed from a tree structure into a linear intermediate representation  As a good example for this Lua s bytecode is often cited  But the intermediate representation really depends on your language   If you are building an interpreter  you will simply have to interpret the intermediate representation  You could also just-in-time-compile it  I recommend LLVM and libjit for just-in-time-compilation  To make the language usable you will also have to include some input and output functions and perhaps a small standard library   If you are going to compile the language  it will be more complicated  You will have to write backends for different computer architectures and generate machine code from the intermediate representation in those backends  I recommend LLVM for this task   There are a few books on this topic  but I can recommend none of them for general use  Most of them are too academic or too practical  There s no  Teach yourself compiler writing in 21 days  and thus  you will have to buy several books to get a good understanding of this entire topic  If you search the Internet  you will come across some some online books and lecture notes  Maybe there s a university library nearby you where you can borrow books on compilers   I also recommend a good background knowledge in theoretical computer science and graph theory  if you are going to make your project serious  A degree in computer science will also be helpful

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Big List of Resources   A Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education    Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation   An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction    ANTLR 3 x Video Tutorial Basics of Compiler Design Building a Parrot Compiler Compiler Basics Compiler Construction   Compiler Design and Construction   Crafting a Compiler with C   Crafting Interpreters  Compiler Design in C  12    Compilers  Principles  Techniques  and Tools       aka  quot The Dragon Book quot   widely considered  quot the book quot  for compiler writing  Engineering a Compiler   Essentials of Programming Languages Flipcode Article Archive  look for  quot Implementing A Scripting Engine by Jan Niestadt quot   Game Scripting Mastery   How to build a virtual machine from scratch in C     Implementing Functional Languages Implementing Programming Languages  with BNFC  Implementing Programming Languages using C  4 0 Interpreter pattern  described in Design Patterns    specifies a way to evaluate sentences in a language Language Implementation Patterns  Create Your Own Domain-Specific and General Programming Languages   Let s Build a Compiler by Jack Crenshaw     The PDF    version  examples are in Pascal  but the information is generally applicable  Linkers and Loaders    Google Books  Lisp in Small Pieces  LiSP    LLVM Tutorial Modern Compiler Implementation in ML       There is a Java   and C   version as well - widely considered a very good book Object-Oriented Compiler Construction   Parsing Techniques - A Practical Guide Project Oberon    - Look at chapter 13 Programming a Personal Computer   Programing Languages  Application and Interpretation Rabbit  A Compiler for Scheme   Reflections on Trusting Trust     A quick guide Roll Your Own Compiler for the  NET framework     A quick tutorial from MSDN Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Types and Programming Languages Want to Write a Compiler  - a quick guide Writing a Compiler in Ruby Bottom Up Compiling a Lisp     compile directly to x86-64  Legend      Link to a PDF file   Link to a printed book

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The Dragon Book is too complicated  So ignore it as a starting point  It is good and makes you think a lot once you already have a starting point  but for starters  perhaps you should simply try to write an math logical expression evaluator using RD  LL or LR parsing techniques with everything  lexing parsing  written by hand in perhaps C Java  This is interesting in itself and gives you an idea of the problems involved in a compiler  Then you can jump in to your own DSL using some scripting language  since processing text is usually easier in these  and like someone said  generate code in either the scripting language itself or C  You should probably use flex bison antlr etc to do the lexing parsing if you are going to do it in c java

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If you are interested in writing a compiler for a functional language  rather than a procedural one  Simon Peyton-Jones and David Lester s  Implementing functional languages  a tutorial  is an excellent guide    The conceptual basics of how functional evaluation works is guided by examples in a simple but powerful functional language called  Core   Additionally  each part of the Core language compiler is explained with code examples in Miranda  a pure functional language very similar to Haskell     Several different types of compilers are described but even if you only follow the so-called template compiler for Core you will have an excellent understanding of what makes functional programming tick

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There s a lot of good answers here  so i thought I d just add one more to the list   I got a book called Project Oberon more than a decade ago  which has some very well written text on the compiler  The book really stands out in the sense that the source and explanations is very hands on and readable  The complete text  the 2005 edition  has been made available in pdf  so you can download right now  The compiler is discussed in chapter 12   http   www ethoberon ethz ch WirthPubl ProjectOberon pdf  Niklaus Wirth  J  rg Gutknecht   The treatment is not as extensive as his book on compilers   I ve read several books on compilers  and i can second the dragon book  time spent on this book is very worthwhile

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If you re willing to use LLVM  check this out  http   llvm org docs tutorial   It teaches you how to write a compiler from scratch using LLVM s framework  and doesn t assume you have any knowledge about the subject   The tutorial suggest you write your own parser and lexer etc  but I advise you to look into bison and flex once you get the idea  They make life so much easier

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Not included in the list so far is this book   Basics of Compiler Design  Torben Mogensen   from the dept  of Computer Science  University of Copenhagen   I m also interested in learning about compilers and plan to enter that industry in the next couple of years  This book is the ideal theory book to begin learning compilers as far as I can see  It s FREE to copy and reproduce  cleanly and carefully written and gives it to you in plain English without any code but still presents the mechanics by way of instructions and diagrams etc  Worth a look imo

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The LCC compiler  wikipedia   project homepage   github com drh lcc  of Fraser and Hanson is described in their book  A Retargetable C Compiler  Design and Implementation   It is quite readable and explains the whole compiler  down to code generation

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The quickest approach is through two books   1990 version of An Introduction to Compiling Techniques  a First Course using ANSI C  LeX  and YaCC by JP Bennett - a perfect balance of example code  parsing theory and design- it contains a complete compiler  written in C  lex and yacc for a simple grammar  Dragon Book  older version  - mostly a detailed reference for the features not covered in the former book

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This is a vast subject  Do not underestimate this point  And do not underestimate my point to not underestimate it  I hear the Dragon Book is a  the   place to start  along with searching     Get better at searching  eventually it will be your life  Building your own programming language is absolutely a good exercise  But know that it will never be used for any practical purpose in the end  Exceptions to this are few and very far between

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I found the Dragon book much too hard to read with too much focus on language theory that is not really required to write a compiler in practice    I would add the Oberon book which contains the full source of an amazingly fast and simple Oberon compiler Project Oberon

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I m surprised it hasn t been mentioned  but Donald Knuth s The Art of Computer Programming was originally penned as a sort of tutorial on compiler writing   Of course  Dr  Knuth s propensity for going in-depth on topics has led to the compiler-writing tutorial being expanded to an estimated 9 volumes  only three of which have actually been published  It s a rather complete exposition on programming topics  and covers everything you would ever need to know about writing a compiler  in minute detail

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I am looking into the same concept  and found this promising article by Joel Pobar   Create a Language Compiler for the  NET Framework - not sure where this has gone  Create a Language Compiler for the  NET Framework - pdf copy of the original doc  he discusses a high level concept of a compiler and proceeds to invent his own langauge for the  Net framework  Although its aimed at the  Net Framework  many of the concepts should be able to be reproduced  The Article covers    Langauge definition  Scanner  Parser  the bit im mainly interested in  Targeting the  Net Framework The Code Generator   there are other topics  but you get the just   Its aimed to people starting out  written in C   not quite Java   HTH  bones

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You might want to look into Lex Yacc  or Flex Bison  whatever you want to call them   Flex is a lexical analyzer  which will parse and identify the semantic components   tokens   of your language  and Bison will be used to define what happens when each token is parsed  This could be  but is definitely not limited to  printing out C code  for a compiler that would compile to C  or dynamically running the instructions   This FAQ should help you  and this tutorial looks quite useful

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If you re not just looking for books  but also interested in web sites that have articles on the topic  I ve blogged about various aspects of creating a programming language  Most of the posts can be found in my blog s  Language Design  category   In particular  I cover generating Intel machine code manually  automatically generating machine- or bytecode  creating a bytecode interpreter  writing an object-oriented runtime  creating a simple loader  and writing a simple mark sweep garbage collector  All of this in a very practical and pragmatic way instead of boring you with lots of theory   Would appreciate feedback on these

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If you have little time  I recommend Niklaus Wirth s  Compiler Construction   Addison-Wesley  1996   a tiny little booklet that you can read in a day  but it explains the basics  including how to implement lexers  recursive descent parsers  and your own stack-based virtual machines   After that  if you want a deep dive  there s no way around the Dragon book as other commenters suggest

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You should check out Darius Bacon s  ichbins   which is a compiler for a small Lisp dialect  targeting C  in just over 6 pages of code   The advantage it has over most toy compilers is that the language is complete enough that the compiler is written in it    The tarball also includes an interpreter to bootstrap the thing    There s more stuff about what I found useful in learning to write a compiler on my Ur-Scheme web page

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I think Modern Compiler Implementation in ML is the best introductory compiler writing text  There s a Java version and a C version too  either of which might be more accessible given your languages background  The book packs a lot of useful basic material  scanning and parsing  semantic analysis  activation records  instruction selection  RISC and x86 native code generation  and various  advanced  topics  compiling OO and functional languages  polymorphism  garbage collection  optimization and single static assignment form  into relatively little space   500 pages    I prefer Modern Compiler Implementation to the Dragon book because Modern Compiler implementation surveys less of the field--instead it has really solid coverage of all the topics you would need to write a serious  decent compiler  After you work through this book you ll be ready to tackle research papers directly for more depth if you need it   I must confess I have a serious soft spot for Niklaus Wirth s Compiler Construction  It is available online as a PDF  I find Wirth s programming aesthetic simply beautiful  however some people find his style too minimal  for example Wirth favors recursive descent parsers  but most CS courses focus on parser generator tools  Wirth s language designs are fairly conservative   Compiler Construction is a very succinct distillation of Wirth s basic ideas  so whether you like his style or not or not  I highly recommend reading this book

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Sorry  it is in Spanish  but this is the bibliography of a course called  Compiladores e Int  rpretes   Compilers and Interpreters  in Argentina    The course was from formal language theory to compiler construction  and these are the topics you need to build  at least  a simple compiler         Compilers Design in C      Allen I  Holub    Prentice-Hall  1990    Compiladores  Teor  a y Construcci  n      Sanch  s   Llorca  F J     Gal  n Pascual  C      Editorial Paraninfo  1988    Compiler Construction      Niklaus Wirth    Addison-Wesley  1996    Lenguajes  Gram  ticas y Aut  matas  Un enfoque pr  ctico      Pedro   Isasi Vi  uela  Paloma Mart  nez   Fern  ndez  Daniel Borrajo Mill  n      Addison-Wesley Iberoamericana    Espa  a   1997    The art of compiler design  Theory and practice      Thomas   Pittman  James Peters     Prentice-Hall  1992    Object-Oriented Compiler Construction      Jim Holmes        Prentice Hall  Englewood   Cliffs  N J  1995   Compiladores  Conceptos Fundamentales      B  Teufel  S    Schmidt  T  Teufel     Addison-Wesley Iberoamericana  1995    Introduction to Automata Theory  Languages  and Computation     John E  Hopcroft  Jeffref D  Ullman        Addison-Wesley  1979    Introduction to formal languages      Gy  rgy E  R  v  sz     Mc Graw Hill  1983    Parsing Techniques  A Practical Guide      Dick Grune  Ceriel   Jacobs      Impreso por los   autores  1995   http   www cs vu nl  dick PTAPG html   Yacc  Yet Another Compiler-Compiler      Stephen   C  Johnson     Computing Science   Technical Report N   32  1975  Bell   Laboratories  Murray Hill  New   Jersey    Lex  A Lexical Analyzer Generator      M  E  Lesk   E  Schmidt      Computing Science Technical   Report N   39  1975  Bell Laboratories    Murray Hill  New     Jersey    lex  amp  yacc      John R  Levine  Tony Mason  Doug Brown     O   Reilly  amp  Associates  1995    Elements of the theory of computation      Harry R  Lewis    Christos H  Papadimitriou    Segunda Edici  n  Prentice Hall  1998     Un Algoritmo Eficiente para la Construcci  n del Grafo de Dependencia de Control    Salvador V  Cavadini    Trabajo Final de Grado para obtener el T  tulo de Ingeniero en Computaci  n    Facultad de Matem  tica Aplicada    U C S E  2001

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From the comp compilers FAQ    Programming a Personal Computer  by Per Brinch Hansen Prentice-Hall 1982 ISBN 0-13-730283-5  This unfortunately-titled book explains the design and creation of a single-user programming environment for micros  using a Pascal-like language called Edison   The author presents all source code and explanations for the step-by-step implementation of an Edison compiler and simple supporting operating system  all written in Edison itself  except for a small supporting kernel written in a symbolic assembler for PDP 11 23  the complete source can also be ordered for the IBM PC    The most interesting things about this book are   1  its ability to demonstrate how to create a complete  self-contained  self-maintaining  useful compiler and operating system  and 2  the interesting discussion of language design and specification problems and trade-offs in Chapter 2    Brinch Hansen on Pascal Compilers  by Per Brinch Hansen Prentice-Hall 1985 ISBN 0-13-083098-4  Another light-on-theory heavy-on-pragmatics here s-how-to-code-it book   The author presents the design  implementation  and complete source code for a compiler and p-code interpreter for Pascal-  Pascal  minus    a Pascal subset with boolean and integer types  but no characters  reals  subranged or enumerated types   constant and variable definitions and array and record types  but no packed  variant  set  pointer  nameless  renamed  or file types   expressions  assignment statements  nested procedure definitions with value and variable parameters  if statements  while statements  and begin-end blocks  but no function definitions  procedural parameters  goto statements and labels  case statements  repeat statements  for statements  and with statements    The compiler and interpreter are written in Pascal   Pascal  star    a Pascal subset extended with some Edison-style features for creating software development systems   A Pascal  compiler for the IBM PC is sold by the author  but it s easy to port the book s Pascal- compiler to any convenient Pascal platform   This book makes the design and implementation of a compiler look easy   I particularly like the way the author is concerned with quality  reliability  and testing   The compiler and interpreter can easily be used as the basis for a more involved language or compiler project  especially if you re pressed to quickly get something up and running

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If you re looking to use powerful  higher level tools rather than building everything yourself  going through the projects and readings for this course is a pretty good option   It s a languages course by the author of the Java parser engine ANTLR   You can get the book for the course as a PDF from the Pragmatic Programmers   The course goes over the standard compiler compiler stuff that you d see elsewhere  parsing  types and type checking  polymorphism  symbol tables  and code generation   Pretty much the only thing that isn t covered is optimizations   The final project is  a program that compiles a subset of C   Because you use tools like ANTLR and LLVM  it s feasible to write the entire compiler in a single day  I have an existence proof of this  though I do mean  24 hours    It s heavy on practical engineering using modern tools  a bit lighter on theory   LLVM  by the way  is simply fantastic   Many situations where you might normally compile down to assembly  you d be much better off compiling to LLVM s Intermediate Representation instead   It s higher level  cross platform  and LLVM is quite good at generating optimized assembly from it

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Python comes bundled with a python compiler written in Python  You can see the source code  and it includes all phases  from parsing  abstract syntax tree  emitting code  etc  Hack it

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Let s Build a Compiler  is awesome  but it s a bit outdated   I m not saying it makes it even a little bit less valid    Or check out SLANG  This is similar to  Let s Build a Compiler  but is a much better resource especially for beginners  This comes with a pdf tutorial which takes a 7 step approach at teaching you a compiler  Adding the quora link as it have the links to all the various ports of SLANG  in C    Java and JS  also  interpreters in python and java  originally written using C  and the  NET platform

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Whenever I want to try out a new language idea  I just write a simple parser  and have it generate some language that s easy to get good compilers for  like C   How do you think C   was done

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Not a book  but a technical paper and an enormously fun learning experience if you want to know more about compilers  and metacompilers     This website walks you through building a completely self-contained compiler system that can compile itself and other languages   Tutorial  Metacompilers Part 1  This is all based on an amazing little 10-page technical paper   Val Schorre META II  A Syntax-Oriented Compiler Writing Language  from honest-to-god 1964  I learned how to build compilers from this back in 1970  There s a mind-blowing moment when you finally grok how the compiler can regenerate itself      I know the website author from my college days  but I have nothing to do with the website

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If you are like me  who has no formal computer science education  and is interested in building want to know how a compiler works   I am recommend  Programming Language Processors in Java  Compilers and Interpreters   an amazing book for a self-taught computer programmer   From my point of view  understanding those basic language theory  automate machine  and set theory is not a big problem  The problem is how to turn those things into code  The above book tells you how to write a parser  analysis context  and generate code  If you can not understand this book  then I have to say  give up building a compiler  The book is best programming book I have ever read   There is an other book  also good  Compiler Design in C  There is a lot of code  and it tells you everything about how to build a compiler and lexer tools   Building a compiler is a fun programming practice and can teach you heaps of programming skills   Do not buy the Dragon book  It was a waste of money and time and is not for a practitioner

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One book not yet suggested but very important is  Linkers and Loaders  by John Levine   If you re not using an external assembler  you ll need a way to output a object file that can be linked into your final program   Even if you re using an external assembler  you ll probably need to understand relocations and how the whole program loading process works to make a working tool   This book collects a lot of the random lore around this process for various systems  including Win32 and Linux

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As an starting point  it will be good to create a recursive descent parser  RDP   let s say you want to create your own flavour of BASIC and build a BASIC interpreter  to understand how to write a compiler  I found the best information in Herbert Schild s C Power Users  chapter 7  This chapter refers to another book of H  Schildt  C The complete Reference  where he explains how to create a calculator  a simple expression parser   I found both books on eBay very cheap  You can check the code for the book if you go to www osborne com or check in www HerbSchildt com I found the same code but for C  in his latest book

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I remember asking this question about seven years ago when I was rather new to programming   I was very careful when I asked and surprisingly I didn t get as much criticism as you are getting here  They did however point me in the direction of the  Dragon Book  which is in my opinion  a really great book that explains everything you need to know to write a compiler  you will of course have to master a language or two  The more languages you know  the merrier     And yes  many people say reading that book is crazy and you won t learn anything from it  but I disagree completely with that   Many people also say that writing compilers is stupid and pointless  Well  there are a number of reasons why compiler development are useful    Because it s fun  It s educational  when learning how to write compilers you will learn a lot about computer science and other techniques that are useful when writing other applications  If nobody wrote compilers the existing languages wouldn t get any better    I didn t write my own compiler right away  but after asking I knew where to start  And now  after learning many different languages and reading the Dragon Book  writing isn t that much of a problem   I m also studying computer engineering atm  but most of what I know about programming is self taught    In conclusion  The Dragon Book is a great  tutorial   But spend some time mastering a language or two before attempting to write a compiler  Don t expect to be a compiler guru within the next decade or so though   The book is also good if you want to learn how to write parsers interpreters

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The Dragon Book is definitely the  building compilers  book  but if your language isn t quite as complicated as the current generation of languages  you may want to look at the Interpreter pattern from Design Patterns   The example in the book designs a regular expression-like language and is well thought through  but as they say in the book  it s good for thinking through the process but is effective really only on small languages  However  it is much faster to write an Interpreter for a small language with this pattern than having to learn about all the different types of parsers  yacc and lex  et cetera

[compiler-construction] Learning to write a compiler

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