CST 8152 - Compilers - Summer (May-August) 1997

IDAllen Tip Jar:

Announcements - Sunday September 27, 1998 01:06

/p>

• Summer Incompletes Demo information and schedule October 6-10

• The Summer 1997 section of CST 8152 is finished.
• Assignment and test marks and statistics are available.
• Each student with an "Incomplete" grade must contact me to demonstrate, in person, his/her Assignment #7 before the extension time expires. Failure to arrange a final demonstration before the deadline will result in the registrar giving the student an "F" grade in the course. Please don't miss your deadline!
• Test file for Assignment #4:
  • Section 011
• Test file for Assignment #6:
  • Section 011
• Test files for Assignment #7:
  • All Sections

Previous course news items

The most recent items are at the top of this section.

• Read This if you are handing in late assignments!
• I have assembled some final exam review questions.
• More marks are available (A4-A7) for the assignments that I have marked.
• I now have a C Programming Resources page that includes a pointer to a debugging malloc/free library, how to increase your C run-time stack and heap limits, and style and other C programming articles. If you haven't read the C Language FAQ, do so. It even explains the famous "null pointer assignment" error.
• A bonus assignment is available.
• Note: I will be out of town attending a professional development seminar August 12-15.
• The registrar has confirmed the date and time for the Final Exam.
• A text-only HTML version of all the PowerPoint slides is now available as one (large) file.
• I wrote a quick C program to generate parser test files.
• The symbol table is to be implemented in Assignment #7, the final assignment.
  • The final assignment requires you to compile your code, process and print the test file, and copy your code to the server during the Lab hour. If you cannot complete the assignment during your Lab hour, you must arrange an alternate time with me to demo your program. I will hand you a different input file and collect your source code then.
• In response to questions about memory management, I have updated (July 27) the semantic actions page.
• Updates (July 21) have been made to the pages related to coding the stack and symbol table: semantic actions, stack implementations, symbol tables, the STRING token, the Print and Dump statements.
• The due date for Assignment #6 was extended to July 30-31. Note that this assignment does not require a symbol table.
• We need two more pieces of data structure to make the interpreter work: a symbol table and an expression value stack. Pages on unary minus, semantic actions, stack implementations, and symbol tables are now available
• Assignment #5 was two pages of theory and was due on Friday, July 18. The intent of the assignment was to get clear on your scanner and parser designs.
• A page on lexical analysis that uses almost all the jargon words is available.
• Midterm #2 is marked; the marks and statistics are available online. Make sure your marks are recorded correctly; missing marks result in no course credit.
• 5,836 lines of test data for your Assignment 4 are available (1.5Mb). Note: identifiers in this test are quite long. If you use fixed-size buffers, adjust them accordingly. Running the test will generate over 17,400 lines of output (which is why the assignment asks that you submit only part of the output during the in-Lab testing). The 40-line program that created this test file is written in the interpreted language Perl; you can download a free copy for your home PC if you want to modify the program to generate your own test files.
• Midterm #2 Review Questions are available.
• Midterm #1 is marked; the marks and statistics are available online.
• Assignment 4 is ready. It was assigned in class on June 25. The due date has been extended to July 9-10 to enable people to finish Assignment 3. If you are having problems making your program work with pointers and dynamic memory, go back to using fixed buffers.

  If you are having problems with Assignment 3, please see me in the Lab after you have attempted some or all of the following things:

  • Write the "memory scribbler" I mentioned in class, to overwrite your strings before you free() them.
  • Learn to use the features of the debuggers.
  • If all else fails, print the hex addresses of all your pointers and learn to recognize bad pointers.
• The course notes have been updated to include slides on Parsing, including code samples for recursive-descent parsing. Steal this code for Assignment 4!
• A complete, working DFA example program shows how the various parts of the basic DFA and Scanner relate to each other. Steal this code!
• The Toy Grammar is available.
• Due to network problems, Assignment Three was changed to be due at noon on Monday, June16. The last day to submit the assignment for credit is therefore June 23.
• A comment key for your programming assignments is available that explains the circled codes I put on your assignment print outs.
• Assignment Two was due at noon on Monday, June 2.
• Assignment One was due on May 14. It was handed back in class on May 30/June 4.
• Marks are available for the assignment(s) and midterms that I have marked.

Summer 1997 Course Notes

• Overhead slides (text and graphics)
• A text-only HTML version of all the PowerPoint slides is available as one (large) file.

Assignment Submission Specifics for CST 8152

• Register yourself with my marking system. If you haven't received email confirming your registration, redo the registration. If you did receive email that showed errors in your registration, please correct the errors by redoing the registration.
• See the general assignment submission guidelines first, then come back and read the specifics for this course here.
• Each function of a submitted program must have an Algonquin-style header with all the following information (see the Blue Book, p.25):
  • The Purpose of the program
  • The History of the program, which must include:
    • a copy of all the identifying information you put on the outside of the assignment, plus
    • the date you began writing this program
  • Inputs (if not already mentioned in the Purpose) or PreConditions
  • Outputs (if not already mentioned in the Purpose) or PostConditions
  • A high-level description of the Algorithm:
    • Give an overview of the whole program; don't go into details about each source line.
    • No pseudocode is necessary; keep the description readable and accurate.
    • If this takes more than a screenful of text, your function is probably too long!

Assignment Evaluation

• The aggregate of all assignment marks comprises 20% of your final mark. All assignments must be completed satisfactorily to get credit for the course, even if the assignments are handed in too late to receive a mark. Please hand them in early enough to get credit!
• Please review the C Programming Style guidelines. Assignment source code is marked for readability. You earn marks by making the source clear, simple, and concise. You lose marks if I have to puzzle over what a piece of code does.
• Late assignments are handled according to the policy given in the course outline.
• “Inside every big program is a little program struggling to get out.”

Midterms

Midterms are in class, 50 minutes long, closed book; no calculators; no aids. The midterms are compressed into ZIP files in the following formats: Microsoft Word 6, Microsoft Word 7, Rich Text Format.  Only the MSWord 7 format is guaranteed to show all the details:

• Midterm #1: Monday June 9
• Midterm #2: Monday July 7

Final Exam

• The final exam is 2 1/2 hours long (150 minutes).
• Held during the last week of the term.
• The exact date is: 9am-11:30am Thursday, August 21 in room A-136.
• Closed book; no calculators; no aids.

Additional References

Course Outline

• This is the official course outline for CST8152, Summer 1997. The course outline is in Corel WordPerfect format.
• This is the official course outline for CST8152, Summer 1997. The course outline is in PDF format.

Other course notes

• My C Programming Resource Page, leading to many other pages, including to course notes for other courses in C programming.
• Winter 1997 (97w) Course Notes for CST 8152 (Ian Allen section)

Last revised: Sunday September 27, 1998 01:06.
Email comments to Ian! D. Allen idallen@freenet.carleton.ca