CS 440/540
Language Processors
Summer 2007
Dr. D. Nordstrom
361 Sci. & Tech. II
dnordstr@gmu.edu
(703) 993-1565
Office hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 2:30-3:30 and
by appointment.
The course website is at
http://cs.gmu.edu/~dnord/cs440-540
Texts
Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman, Compilers: Principles, Techniques,
and Tools, second edition, 2007 Addison-Wesley, 1986.
Levine, Mason, and Brown, Lex &
Yacc, 2nd ed., O'Reilly & Associates, 1990.
Description: CS 440
This is a 3-credit course on programming language translation
concentrating on compilers. Prerequisites are CS 310, CS 330
and CS 365. 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.
Description: CS 540
The material for CS 540 will be essentially the same, as the lectures
will be common to the two courses. CS 540 students, however, will
have extra assigned reading and will do one more programming
assignment than CS 440 students.
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%