Download Compilation Systems Volume 1 (Tools)

Compilation Systems Volume 1 (Tools)
There are hundreds of programming languages available to the computing world. Concurrent Computer Corporation supports a few of the most popular languages:
C
See the Concurrent C Reference Manual
Fortran
See the hf77 Fortran Reference Manual
Ada
See the HAPSE Reference Manual
assembly language
See Chapter 2 (“Assembler and Assembly Language”) in
this manual.
C, Fortran, and Ada are often referred to as high-level languages. The source code for
programs written in these languages is fairly portable across computer systems provided
by different manufacturers. In addition, these programs can be accepted and processed by
compilers produced by different software vendors. The literary world provides an
abundance of books and references on these languages.
Assembly language is often referred to as a low-level language. This language provides
mnemonics and directives which usually map one-to-one with the instruction set and
resources of the computer system.
All of these languages are supported for the supporting hardware platforms.
Compilation Systems Concepts
1
A compilation system is a set of language processors, commands, utilities, and libraries
which can be used in the development of software programs. Compilation systems convert
source code into binary programs which can be executed on a computer. In addition, they
provide tools and facilities for debugging and analyzing program behavior and characteristics.
At the heart of a compilation system is the language processor. Usually, this is the
compiler. A compiler is a program which accepts, as input, source code written in a highlevel language. It processes this input and produces a lower-level representation of the
source code. This new representation can be an assembly language representation of the
higher-level source code, making it necessary to run an assembler to produce a machinelevel representation of the code. Sometimes a compiler will translate the high-level
language directly into the machine-level representation. A compiler analyzes the source
code, both syntactically and semantically. A good compiler detects as many errors as it can
locate, enabling the programmer to correct them before they occur during execution of the
program. A good compiler can also optimize the program. Optimization transforms the
program, allowing it to run faster and more efficiently.
Some languages are processed by an interpreter. Whereas a compiler produces output that
must be further processed and then executed, an interpreter performs “on the fly”
translation and execution of the program.
Assembly language is processed by an assembler. Assemblers are usually less
sophisticated than compilers and interpreters. An assembler often does nothing more than
convert the specified assembly language instructions and directives into machine instructions.
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