CS 440
Language Processors
Summer 2005


Dr. D. Nordstrom
361 Sci. & Tech. II
dnordstr@mason.gmu.edu
(703) 993-1565
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 - 3:30 and by appointment.
The course website is at http://cs.gmu.edu/~dnord/cs440

Texts

Aho, Sethi, and Ullman, Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools, Addison-Wesley, 1986.
and recommended if available: Levine, Mason, and Brown, Lex and Yacc, 2nd ed., O'Reilly & Associates, 1990.

Description

This is a 3-credit course on programming language translation concentrating on compilers. Prerequisites are CS 265, CS 310, CS 330 and Math 125. Students should know basic data structures, should have seen finite automata (finite state machines) and context-free grammars from CS 330, should be comfortable with assembly language programming, and should be able to program in Java, C, or C++. Topics include:
Compiler organization
Regular expressions and finite automata
Lexical analysis
Symbol tables
Context-free grammars
LL and LR parsing
lex and yacc
Code generation
Attribute grammars
There will be a significant programming project in which students write a small interpreter and a compiler. Programming will be done in Java, C, or C++ and will use the tools lex and yacc or their equivalents.

Grading

In addition to the programming project there will be a midterm and a final exam. Makeups on exams will not be given except for very good reason (as judged by me) and only when arranged in advance. The course grade will be computed from:
Programming: 35%
Midterm: 30%
Final: 35%