Search icon CANCEL
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Conferences
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Build Your Own Programming Language

You're reading from   Build Your Own Programming Language A programmer's guide to designing compilers, interpreters, and DSLs for modern computing problems

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Jan 2024
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781804618028
Length 556 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
Languages
Tools
Arrow right icon
Author (1):
Arrow left icon
Clinton  L. Jeffery Clinton L. Jeffery
Author Profile Icon Clinton L. Jeffery
Clinton L. Jeffery
Arrow right icon
View More author details
Toc

Table of Contents (27) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Section I: Programming Language Frontends
2. Why Build Another Programming Language? FREE CHAPTER 3. Programming Language Design 4. Scanning Source Code 5. Parsing 6. Syntax Trees 7. Section II: Syntax Tree Traversals
8. Symbol Tables 9. Checking Base Types 10. Checking Types on Arrays, Method Calls, and Structure Accesses 11. Intermediate Code Generation 12. Syntax Coloring in an IDE 13. Section III: Code Generation and Runtime Systems
14. Preprocessors and Transpilers 15. Bytecode Interpreters 16. Generating Bytecode 17. Native Code Generation 18. Implementing Operators and Built-In Functions 19. Domain Control Structures 20. Garbage Collection 21. Final Thoughts 22. Section IV: Appendix
23. Answers
24. Other Books You May Enjoy
25. Index
Appendix: Unicon Essentials

Checking for undeclared variables

To find undeclared variables, check the symbol table on each variable that’s used for assignment or dereferencing. These reads and writes of memory occur in the executable statements and the expressions whose values are computed within those statements. Given a syntax tree, how do you find them?

The answer is to use tree traversals that look for IDENTIFIER tokens but only when they are in executable statements within blocks of code. To go about this, start from the top with a tree traversal that just finds the blocks of code. In Jzero, this is a traversal that finds the bodies of methods.

Identifying the bodies of methods

The check_codeblocks() method traverses the tree from the top to find all the method bodies, which is where the executable code is in Jzero. For every method declaration it finds, it calls another method called check_block() on that method’s body. In tree.icn, the Unicon version is:

method check_codeblocks...
lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at $19.99/month. Cancel anytime