Chapter 1

Programming Language Syntax and Semantics

Software Development Process

 Requirement Analysis and Specification

 Software Design
 Implementation
 Verification and Validation
 Maintenance
Languages and Software Development
Environment
 A Software development environment is an integrated set
of tools and techniques that aids in the development of
software
 The environment is used in all phases of software
development.
 Such environment can provide tools to simulate or
animate the customers requirements, keeping
documentation, automating some development steps etc.
 Eg. Editors, compilers, simulators, interpreter, linker etc.
 Such tools have increased programming productivity by
reducing the chances of errors.
 Languages and software design methods
A design method gives guideline while producing a design. eg.
Structured design, top-down, object oriented design.
Some languages support better support to specific or some design
methods.
Tounderstand the relationship between language and design method, we
must understand different programming paradigm.
o Procedural programming
o Functional programming
o Abstract data type programming
o Module based programming
o Object oriented programming
o Generic programming
o Declarative Programming
Ifthe design method and language paradigm is same then design abstraction
can be directly mapped into program components.
Languages and Computer Architecture
 Computer Architecture uses language designs to check
what can be implemented efficiently on current
machines.
 Conventional programming languages can be viewed
as abstraction of a von Neumann architecture.
Abstraction model highlights only relevant aspects.
Programming language qualities
 Programming language is a tool for the development of
software, so programming language qualities are related
to quality of a software.
1. Software must be reliable
2. Software must be maintainable
3. Software must execute efficiently
• Reliability supports writability, readability,
simplicity, safety and robustness.
• Two main features that languages can provide to
support modification are factoring and locality.
• Efficiency is concerned with execution speed and
space, and also reusable and portable software.
A brief historical perspective
A birds eye view of programming language
concepts
Part 1:organization

Part 2:environment

Part 1:computation
2.Syntax and semantics
◦ syntax rules of the language state how to form
expressions, statements, and programs that look right.
◦ How to build meaningful expressions, statements, and
programs.

3. Semantic Elements
 Variables- declaration, scope, type, lifetime
 x = y; //value of y assigned to x
 x = &y; //stores the address of y into x
 3 = y; //error, left-hand side requires l-value
 Expressions
 a=b=c+d
4. Program organization
◦ Thousands or millions line of code,
◦ Modules, e.g. phone.h, iostream.h
 Implemented and validated separately
 Compiler compile module separatly
◦ Structure of Design reflects structure of program
through PPL
5. Program Data and Algorithms
 Data : Declaration, validation, initialization,
modification.
 Computation: control structure, functions, structures,
expression
6. External Environment
 1.2 Syntax and Semantics
1.2.1 Language Definition
 A language definition should enable person or computer program
to determine whether a program is valid and what its meaning is.
• Syntax
- Is a set of rules that define the form of language.
- Syntax of language is defined by two sets of rules:
1. Lexical Rules
2. Syntactic Rules
- For each language these rules are somewhat different
For eg. Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated same in pascal
language but C and Ada consider them different.
Lexical rules also tells us that not equal to symbol is different for
different language
Pascal <> C != Ada /=
Language Definition Cont.
 To define infinite syntax of a language we use finite
description.
 FORTRAN was defined using simple rules of English.
ALGOL 60 was defined with a CFG which is also called as
BNF(Backus-Naur Form).
 EBNF(Extended BNF)

- is a metalanguage
- The symbols :: =, <, > , | , * and + are called as
metasymbols.
- <,> are nonterminal symbols
- { } are terminal symbol
- * represents zero or more occurrence of preceding element
- + represents one or more occurrence of preceding element.
EBNF definition of a simple PL
Syntax Diagrams
Syntax Diagrams Cont.
Syntax Diagrams Cont.
Abstract syntax, concrete syntax and
pragmatics
 Abstract syntax, concrete syntax and pragmatics
- C fragment
while (x != y)
{ …. };
- Pascal fragment
while x<> y do
begin
…..
end
Abstract syntax, concrete syntax and
pragmatics cont.
C or Pascal allow brackets to be omitted in case of
single statement, but it needs to insert { } brackets for
multiple statements.
 Modula-2 solve this problem by using ‘end’ keyword.
Semantics
 Semantics defines the meaning of syntactically correct
program.
eg. int vector [10];
if (a>b) max=a; else max=b;
• Syntactically correct program can be verified before
program execution is called static semantics.
• Dynamic semantics describes the effect of executing
different constructs of the programming language.
An introduction to formal Semantics
 Two ways of specifying formal semantics
1. Axiomatic Semantics
- views program as state machine
- Axiomatic semantics specifies each statement of a
language in terms of a function asem, called predicate
transformer, which yields the weakest precondition W
for the statement S and any postcondition P.
y=3 precondition y>=0 Weakest precondition
x=y+1 statement
x>0 postcondition
An introduction to formal Semantics
2. Denotational Semantics
- Denotational sematics associates each language
statement with a function dsem from the state of
program before the execution to the state after the
execution.
Language Processing
How a higher level language is can be executed
on a computer whose machine level language is
very different and low level.
Two ways are there

1. Interpretation
2. Translation
Interpretation
 For each possible action there exist a subprogram in
machine language to execute the action.
 Thus interpretation of program is completed by calling
subprogram in a proper sequence.
 An interpreter is a program that repeatedly executes the
following sequence
◦ Get the next statement
◦ Determine the action to be executed
◦ Perform the action
Translation
 Programs written in high level language is translated in
to an equivalent machine language before being
executed.
 Program modules is first be separately translated into
relocatable machine code.
 Modules of relocatable code are linked together into a
single relocatable unit.
 Finally the entire program is loded into computers
memory as executable machine code.
 The translators used in each of these step has a different
names: Compiler, Linker, Loader
 If the machine on which translation is performed is
different from machine where it is executed then such
translation is called as cross translation.
Translation
The concept of binding
 Program entities(Variables, Routines, Statements etc.)
have certain properties(name, parameter, scope etc.)
called attributes.
 Specifying the exact nature of an attribute is called as
binding.
 A binding that can not be modified is called as static
binding, and a modifiable binding is called as dynamic
binding.
 Binding can be done at compile time or run time.

Eg. int a=10 The value 10 is bind with ‘a’ at

compile time.
Variables, Names and Scope
 Variable is a name assigned to a memory location. We
can access the memory location using that variable, and
store and modify values in it.
 Name is assigned to a variable by a declaration statement.
 The scope of program variable is the range of program
instructions over which the name is known.
◦ Eg. {
int a=10;
}
Above statement allocate a memory location of two bytes for a
integer variable, give its name as ‘a’, store a value of 10, and its
scope is within the {} brackets only.
Variable
A variable is a 5-tuple <name, scope, type, l_value,
r_value>
• name is a string of characters used by program
statements to denote the variable;
• scope is the range of program instructions over
which the name is known;
• type is the variable’s type;
• l_value is the memory location associated with the
variable;
• r_value is the encoded value stored in the variable’s
location.
Type
 A variable of given type is said to be instance of the type.
 static typing: the binding between a variable and its type is
done at compile time.
 Ex: FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, C, C++, Modula-2, and
Ada
 dynamic typing: run-time binding between variables and
their type
 Ex:Assembly languages, LISP, APL, SNOBOL4, and
Smalltalk

 Type can be of built in type or user defined type.

 User can define a new type y using type declaration
Scope
Static Scope Binding: defines the scope
in terms of the lexical structure of a
program.
 Ex: C,C++
Dynamic scope binding defines the scope
of a variable's name in terms of program
execution.
 Ex:APL, LISP, SNOBOL4
Dynamic Scope
{
/* block A */
int x;
. . .
}
. . .
{
/* block B */
int x;
. . .
}
. . .
{
/* block C */
. . .
x = ...;
. . .
}
Routines
 Programming languages allow a program to be
composed of a number of units called routines.
 Routines usually come in two forms: Procedures and
functions. Functions returns value while procedures not.
Routines cont.
 Routines also have name, scope, type, l-value, r-value.
 Routine activation is done through routine call.
 Routine can refer to local and nonlocal(Global) items.
 A routines l-value constitutes the memory area where
routine body is saved. The r-value bound to the routine at
run time.
 Routine declaration defines the routine header without
specifying the body whereas routine definition specifies
routine header and body.
 The activation record contains all the information
necessary to execute the routine for eg. local, nonlocal
variables, return address etc.
Routines cont.
Generic Routines
 Generic routines are the routines that perform a same
task for different parameter types.
eg. Following is a generic swap routine in c++.
Aliasing and overloading
 A name is said to be overloaded if more than one entity is
bound to the name at a given point of program .
◦ Eg. int a, b, c;
b() { }
……
a=b+c+b();

 Aliasing is exactly opposite of overloading. Two names are

aliases if they denote the same entity at the same program
point.
◦ Eg. int x=0;
int *i=&x;
int *j=&x;
Would make *i, *j and x aliases.
An Abstract Semantic Processor
 SIMPLESEM is a simple abstract processor.
 SIMPLESEM consist of instruction pointer(ip), memory
and processor.
 We assume that there are two separate memory section,
code memory and data memory.
An Abstract Semantic Processor cont.
 We use the notation D[X] and C[X] to denote the values
stored in the X-th cell of D and C resp.
 Modification of value is performed by set instruction.

Eg. set 10,D[20]

will assign the value at location 20 into location 10.
 Input/Output can be achieved using set instruction and
special registers read and write.
Eg. set 15,read
value read from input device is to be stored at location 15
set write, D[15]
value stored at location 15 is to be transferred to the output device
An Abstract Semantic Processor cont.
 The SIMPLESEM machine operates by executing the
following steps repeatedly, until it encounters a special
halt instruction.
1. Get the current instruction to be executed
2. Increment ip
3. Execute the current instruction.
 Someinstruction might modify the control flow such as
jump or jumpt instruction.
Eg. Jump 47 it sets ip to 47
Run Time Structure
 Languages can be classified according to their execution time
structure.
1. Static Language- Memory requirement for any program
can be evaluated before execution. It can not allow recursion.
Eg. Early versions of FORTRAN,COBOL
2. Stack Based Languages- Memory requirement can be
evaluated at compile time or run time but memory usage is
predictable and follows a first-in-first-out discipline. The
lastly allocated activation record is the next one to
deallocated.
Eg. ALGOL 60
Run Time Execution Cont.
3. Fully Dynamic Language- These languages have
unpredictable memory usage i.e. data is dynamically
allocated only at execution time.
 C1 Language
 This language have simple types and simple statements(no
functions). Following is a C1 program & initial state of
SIMPLESEM machine for that program.
C2 Language
 C2 program consist of sequence of following items.
◦ Set of data declaration
◦ Set of routine definition and declaration
◦ A main routine
 For simplicity it is assumed that routines can not call
themselves recursively, do not have parameters and do
not return values.