"A Multi-Pass Compiler with Code Optimized Abstract Syntax Tree"

Abstract

This study proposes a multi-pass compiler with code optimized abstract syntax tree based on a subset of C# as the source and C constructs as the target, with the view to enhancing the understanding of compiler design, which conceptually has been a rather difficult discourse.A single-pass compiler allows a single traversal over the source code or intermediate form.This does not allow for a distributed compilation and modular development.On the other hand, the proposed scheme decouples the type-checker from the abstract syntax tree, thus separating them into independent segments that allows a multi-pass over the source code; this in turn provides a mechanism for modular development, which encourages distributed compilation.The proposed scheme constructs the abstract syntax tree before the typechecking, thus allowing another tranversal on the intermediate form of the source code.An optimised tree was constructed after code optimisation had been conducted.The scheme is based on only small subset of C# constructs.Further study would be focused on adding more constructs.