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December 24, 2013

Bootstrapping of Compiler

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Bootstrapping is a process in which simple language is used to translate more complicated program which in turn may handle far more complicated program. This complicated program can further handle even more complicated program and so on...

As you know, writing a compiler for any high level language is a complicated process. It takes lots of time to write a compiler from scratch. Hence simple language is used to generate target code in some stages.

Confused ? to clearly understand the bootstrapping technique consider the following scenario.

Suppose we want to write a cross compiler for a new language say X. The implementation language of this compiler is say Y and the target code being generated is in language say Z. That is, we create
XYZ. Now if existing compiler Y (i.e., compiler written in language Y) runs on machine and generates code for M then it is denoted as YMM. Now if we run XYZ using YMM then we get a compiler XMZ. That means a compiler for source language X that generates a target code in language Z and which runs on machine M. 

Following diagram illustrates the above scenario.


Now lets have a look at an example to understand the concept in more detail,

Example :  We can create compilers of many different forms. Now we will generate compiler which takes C language and generates an assembly language as an output with the availability of a machine of assembly language.
Step 1 : First we write a compiler for a small subset of C in assembly language.


Step 2 : Then using this small subset of C i.e., C0, for the source language C the compiler is written.
Compiler 2

Step 3 : Finally we compile the second compiler. Using the compiler 1 the compiler 2 is compiled.


Step 4 : Thus we get a compiler written in ASM which compiles C and generates code in ASM.

That's all for now friends. In our next post we shall discuss about the Interpreter. Happy Reading :) 

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3 comments:

  1. Thank you Ma'am.... In step 3, what is the target???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ** What is the target of compiler 2??

      Delete

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