The aim of this project is for you to construct a fully working compiler for a small simple programming language, SPL. The compiler will read in SPL source code and produce ANSI C as output.

A full description of the language is given in this document, from which, over the course of the semester, you will construct a compiler using some of the techniques learnt in the lectures and by using the Unix utilities Lex and Yacc or the Cygwin/linux utilities Flex and Bison.

At this point in the course you will not be able to attempt most of this project. Do not worry. Over the next few weeks you will be given the information necessary to attempt the various stages of the project as they arise.

The project is almost a whole semester long and is split in to five components, with milestones staged throughout the course of the semester. You should aim to show your completed work at each stage to a laboratory demonstrator who can track your progress and offer advice that might help you advance to the next part.

The component stages are as follows

A BNF description of the SPL language described by the roadmaps given in this document. This should be submitted on paper.

A Lexical Analyser file which will enable Flex or Lex to generate a working lexical analyser for the language.

A partially complete Parser file containing all of the code necessary to create a parse tree using the Yacc or Bison tools.

A complete Parser file which also includes a code generation function so that you now have a fully working compiler using the tools Yacc or Bison.

A word-processed report on the complete project. This should include printed examples demonstrating the operation of your compiler on both correct and incorrect code, and listings of the components.

If you are unable to complete any part for the whole SPL language you should reduce the language to a subset so that you can complete the compiler.