CS 434T: Compilers

Stephen Freund, Fall 2026

This tutorial covers the principles and practices for the design and implementation of compilers and interpreters. Topics include all stages of the compilation and execution process: lexical analysis; parsing; symbol tables; type systems; scope; semantic analysis; intermediate representations; run-time environments and interpreters; code generation; program analysis and optimization; and garbage collection. The course covers both the theoretical and practical implications of these topics. As a project course, students will construct a full compiler for a simple object-oriented language.

Full Syllabus

Calendar

Week 0 (Sep 11)

Week 0 (Sep 11): Lab: Course Overview and Scala Crash Course

Reading	Syllabus Slides
Friday Lab	Lab 0: A Scala Crash Course

Week 1 (Sep 14)

Week 1 (Sep 14): Overview and Lexical Analysis

Reading	Dragon 1 Dragon 3.3, 3.5-3.7 Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple And Fast (but is slow in Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, …), Russ Cox, January, 2007. An amusing regular expression
Due Wednesday, Sep. 16	Lab 0: A Scala Crash Course
Friday Meeting	HW 1
Friday Lab	Lab 1: NFA Simulation

Week 2 (Sep 21)

Week 2 (Sep 21): Lexical Analysis, Grammars, Top-Down Parsing

Reading	Dragon 3.8, 3.9.6 Dragon 4.1-4.4 The slex tutorial – lex-style scanning: declare tokens as regular expressions. The slex source code – the engine is HW 2’s Thompson construction, HW 1’s subset construction, and a simple DFA simulation.
Due Wednesday, Sep. 23	Lab 1: NFA Simulation
Friday Meeting	HW 2
Friday Lab	PA 1

Week 3 (Sep 28)

Week 3 (Sep 28): Grammars and Writing a Parser

Reading	The scup tutorial – the LL(1) grammar DSL and worked examples with the library. Dragon 4.4 (predictive parsing, FIRST and FOLLOW, LL(1) grammars) – the theory the library mechanizes; HW 2’s computations become running code this week. The scup source code – read all of it; it is short: Syntax.scala, Analysis.scala, Parse.scala.
Due Wednesday, Sep. 30	PA 1
Friday Meeting	HW 3
Friday Lab	Lab 2: A Calculator

Week 4 (Oct 5)

Week 4 (Oct 5): Parsing IC, ASTs, and Symbol Tables

Reading	Engineering a Compiler, Cooper and Torczon, 4.1-4.3, 5.1-5.4, 5.7. Modern Compiler Implementation in Java, Appel, Ch. 4.
Due Wednesday, Oct. 7	Lab 2: A Calculator
Friday Meeting	HW 4 Simple TAC Definition for problem 2
Friday Lab	PA 2

Week 5 (Oct 12)

Week 5 (Oct 12): PA 2 Work Week — reading period Oct 12–13

Reading	Finish the Week 4 readings.
Friday Meeting	Shoot for: Regular Expression Compiler from HW 4 a working IC parser (or good progress on one) a sketch of your IC AST design #1 from HW 5 (below)
Friday Lab	PA 2

Week 6 (Oct 19)

Week 6 (Oct 19): Scopes, Types, Type Checking

Reading	Type Systems, Luca Cardelli, 1997. Sections 1-3 (up to Table 9), and 9 Dragon 6.3-6.3.2,6.5 (skim) Type System Spec for IC (Section 16) Foundations of Object-Oriented Languages, Kim Bruce, 2002. Chapters 2-3 (reference)
Due Wednesday, Oct. 21	PA 2 checkpoint (ASTs)
Friday Meeting	HW 5 IndentingPrintStream.scala (feel free to use in your pretty printer)
Friday Lab	PA 2