\documentclass[10pt, a4paper]{article} \usepackage{xeCJK, fontspec} \usepackage{amsmath, verbatim} \usepackage{setspace, float} \usepackage{graphicx, wrapfig} \usepackage{rotating, enumerate, minted, fancyvrb} \usepackage[left=1in, right=1in]{geometry} \usepackage[font=small]{caption} \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text} \setCJKmainfont[BoldFont={STHeiti}]{Adobe Song Std} \XeTeXlinebreaklocale "zh" \XeTeXlinebreakskip = 0pt plus 1pt minus 0.1pt \setlength{\parindent}{2em} \setlength{\parskip}{1em} \makeatletter \def\verbatim@font{\ttfamily\small} \makeatother \makeatletter \let\@afterindentrestore\@afterindentfalse \let\@afterindentfalse\@afterindenttrue \@afterindenttrue \makeatother \xeCJKsetup{CJKglue=\hspace{0pt plus .08 \baselineskip }} \newcommand{\ud}{\mathrm{d}} \usemintedstyle{colorful} \begin{document} \title{\Large{CIBIC: C Implemented Bare and Ingenuous Compiler}} \author{\textsc{尹茂帆 Ted Yin}\\ \\\multicolumn{1}{p{.7\textwidth}} {\centering\emph{F1224004 5120309051\\ Shanghai Jiao Tong University ACM Class}}} \maketitle \begin{abstract} This report presents the design and features of a simple C compiler which generates MIPS assembly code. Although not all the language requirements and features are implemented according to the standard, it still supports major C features, such as basic types (void, int, char), basic flow control syntax (if, while-loop, for-loop), user-defined types (aka. typedef), functions, pointers (including function pointers), struct/union (may be nested), etc. Besides, it makes use of SSA (Single Static Assignment) form for the IR (Intermediate Representation) and optimization. The whole compiler is written in pure C, obeying C89/C99 standard. The report first introduces the lexer and parser generation, then focuses on the data structures being used in the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) and symbol tables, and makes a conclusion on the supported syntactical features. Next, the report shows the intermediate representation design and claims the techniques that have been used in the project. Finally, various optimization techniques are presented and discussed, some are accompanied with code snippets. \end{abstract} \section{Lexer and Parser} CIBIC makes good use of existing lexer and parser generators. It uses Flex to generate lexer while using Bison as parser generator. Both generators read boilerplate text which contains C code fragments to be filled in the generated lexer/parser. The best practice, I suggest, is to avoid embedding too much concrete code in the boilerplate. Instead, we shall write well-designed functions in a separate file (``\texttt{ast.c}'' in CIBIC) and invoke functions in the boilerplate. The reason is that it is almost not practical nor convenient to debug the generated lexer or parser. Using the seperation method, we can set up breakpoints in the seperate file easily and debug on the fly. The declarations of all functions that may be invoked during parsing can be found in ``\texttt{ast.h}''. It requires a little more effort to track the location of each token using Flex. Luckily, Flex provides with a macro called ``\texttt{YY\_USER\_ACTION}'' to let the user do some extra actions after each token is read. So I maintained a global variable ``\texttt{yycolumn}'' to keep the current column, a global char array ``\texttt{linebuff}'' to buffer the text being read for error report. \begin{listing}[H] \centering \RecustomVerbatimEnvironment{Verbatim}{BVerbatim}{} \begin{minted}{c} int yycolumn = 1; char linebuff[MAX_LINEBUFF], *lptr = linebuff; #define YY_USER_ACTION \ do { \ yylloc.first_line = yylloc.last_line = yylineno; \ yylloc.first_column = yycolumn; \ yylloc.last_column = yycolumn + yyleng - 1; \ yycolumn += yyleng; \ memmove(lptr, yytext, yyleng); \ lptr += yyleng; \ } while (0); #define NEW_LINE_USER_ACTION \ do { \ yycolumn = 1; \ lptr = linebuff; \ } while (0) \end{minted} \caption {Code Snippet to Track Down Location} \end{listing} \section{Semantic Analysis and Implementation} The parsing process is also an AST (Abstrct Syntax Tree) construction process. By calling the corresponding functions, the generated parser create tree nodes and merge them into subtrees. The major issue here is how to design a proper data structure to represent and maintain the AST. In CIBIC, all nodes in an AST are instances of struct ``CNode'' in figure. \begin{figure}[H] \centering \texttt { \begin{tabular}{|c|} \hline type \\ \footnotesize{describe syntax information e.g. expression or declarator} \\ \hline rec: \\ \footnotesize{\textbf{union of intval / subtype / strval}} \\ \footnotesize{stores detailed information e.g. which kind of expression it is} \\ \hline ext: \\ \footnotesize{\textbf{struct of type, var, autos, const\_val, is\_const, offset}} \\ \footnotesize{extended info, where annotation is made} \\ \hline chd \\ \footnotesize{the left most child of the node} \\ \hline next \\ \footnotesize{the next sibling} \\ \hline loc \\ \footnotesize{\textbf{struct of row, col}} \\ \footnotesize{the location in the source code, for error report} \\ \hline \end{tabular} } \caption{The Structure of a CNode instance} \end{figure} Since a node may have variable number of children, the most common and efficient approach is to implement a left-child right-sibling binary tree. The field ``\texttt{chd}'' points to the child and ``\texttt{next}'' points to the next sibling. This implementation is extremely flexible because we do not need to know the number of children in advance, which brings us the convenience of appending argument nodes to a function invocation node in the boilerplate. After construction of the AST, the tree will be traversed by calling mutually recursive functions declared in ``\texttt{semantics.h}''. The entry call is ``\texttt{semantics\_check}'' which will set up the symbol tables and call ``\texttt{semantics\_func}'' and ``\texttt{semantics\_decl}'' to analyze function definitions and global declarations. These functions will further invoke more basic functions such as ``\texttt{semantics\_comp}'' (handles compound statements) to fully check the semantics and gather variable typing information. The key data structures in the semantic checking are \textbf{symbol tables}. Symbol tables maintain variables and types in different scopes across different name spaces. When a variable is defined, the corresponding type specifer will be checked and binds to the variable. Also, when the scope ends, all variable bindings living within the scope will be removed from the table. Although they are removed from the table, the bindings are still referenced by some nodes on the AST, so that the AST becomes ``\textbf{annotated AST}''. In CIBIC, the variable reference is stored in ``\texttt{ext.var}'' field of ``\texttt{CNode}'' and the type information of an subexpression is annotated at ``\texttt{ext.type}''. Thus, in a word, symbol tables stores all symbols that are currently \textbf{visible}. In C language, there are four name spaces: for label names, tags, members of structures or unions and all other identifiers. Goto statments are not implemented in CIBIC, so there're actually three name spaces. Since each kind of structures or unios have its own name space for its fields, we treat them specially and create a new table for each of them. For tags and all other identifiers, we set up two global tables. Besides name spaces, scoping is also a very important concept in C. It seems to be an orthogonal concept to name spaces. Considering these two concepts, CIBIC implements a struct named ``\texttt{CScope}'' to maintain all the information as shown in figure. \begin{figure}[H] \centering \texttt { \begin{tabular}{|c|} \hline lvl \\ \footnotesize{current nesting level of scopes, e.g. 0 for global scope} \\ \hline func \\ \footnotesize{current function, helpful when analyzing a return statement} \\ \hline inside\_loop \\ \footnotesize{if the scope is inside a loop, help full when analyzing a break statement} \\ \hline top \\ \footnotesize{points to the top of the scope stack} \\ \hline ids \\ \footnotesize{name space for all other variables} \\ \hline tags \\ \footnotesize{name space for all tags (name of structs or unions)} \\ \hline \end{tabular} } \caption{The Structure of a CScope instance} \end{figure} Note that ``\texttt{top}'' points to an instance of ``\texttt{CSNode}'' which has two fields ``\texttt{symlist}'' and ``\texttt{next}''. ``\texttt{symlist}'' points to a list of symbols in the same scope while ``\texttt{next}'' links to the outer scope which is another instance of ``\texttt{CSNode}''. As for ``\texttt{ids}'' and ``\texttt{tags}'', they are pointers to ``\texttt{CTable}'',stores all the current symbols. As mentioned above, for each struct or union, there is also a pointer to ``\texttt{CTable}'' stores all field names. ``\texttt{CTable}'' is an open addressing hash table containing nodes of the type ``\texttt{CTNode}''. The structure of each node is depicted in figure. \begin{figure}[H] \centering \texttt { \begin{tabular}{|c|} \hline key \\ \footnotesize{char *} \\ \hline val \\ \footnotesize{void *, in order to also be used in checking duplicate parameters, etc.} \\ \hline next \\ \footnotesize{the next element which has the same hash value} \\ \hline lvl \\ \footnotesize{scope level} \\ \hline \end{tabular} } \caption{The Structure of a CTNode instance} \end{figure} Thanks to the level information kept in each ``\texttt{CTNode}'', we do not have to establish a hash table for every scopes, which may be memory consuming. Instead, whenever a new scope begins, CIBIC simply pushes a new frame to scope stack. This is achieved by creating an instance of ``\texttt{CSNode}'', setting its ``\texttt{next}'' field to the ``\texttt{top}'' field of the ``\texttt{CScope}'' then letting the ``\texttt{top}'' points to the new frame, finally increasing ``\texttt{lvl}'' by one. Whenever a new symbol is being added to ``\texttt{CScope}'', CIBIC adds the symbol to one of the tables ``\texttt{ids}'' and ``\texttt{tags}'', then also appends the symbol to the ``\texttt{symlist}'' of the top of the scope stack. The most elegant characteristics of open addressing hash tables is, for the same name appears in different scopes, the symbol defined at the inner most is always ahead of others in the chain of the table because it is the most recently added one. So, for lookups, CIBIC just need to return the first node having the same name in the chain, which is very time-efficient. At last, when a scope ends, CIBIC scans the whole ``\texttt{symlist}'' of the top scope frame, and tries to remove these symbols from the table. Figure presents the content of the scope stack when the analysis proceeds into the inner most declaration of a. See chains with hash code 0097 and 0098. \begin{figure}[H] % \centering \begin{minipage}{0.35\textwidth} % \RecustomVerbatimEnvironment{Verbatim}{BVerbatim}{} \begin{minted}{c} int main() { int a, b; if (a > 0) { int a, b; if (a > 0) { int a, b; } } } \end{minted} \caption {Source Code Being Proceeded} \end{minipage} % \centering \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth} \begin{BVerbatim} [0072]->[int@747e780:0] [0097]->[a@7484ae0:3]->[a@7484890:2]->[a@7484580:1] [0098]->[b@7484bb0:3]->[b@7484960:2]->[b@7484710:1] [0108]->[printf@747f150:0] [0188]->[scanf@747f640:0] [0263]->[__print_string@7484010:0] [0278]->[__print_char@7483fc0:0] [0623]->[__print_int@747f8b0:0] [0778]->[malloc@7484100:0] [0827]->[void@747eee0:0] [0856]->[main@7484530:0] [0908]->[memcpy@7484060:0] [0971]->[char@747e9f0:0] \end{BVerbatim} \caption {Dump Info from CIBIC: Scope Stack} \end{minipage} \end{figure} \subsection{Type System} C has a small set of basic types. In CIBIC, basic types include \texttt{char}, \texttt{int} and \texttt{void} (literally, \texttt{void} is not an actual type). However, C supports two powerful type aggregation: arrays and structures (unions), and also supports an indirect access tool: pointer. This makes the type system much more complex and usable in practice. CIBIC uses the concept ``type tree'' to organize types. All basic types are the leaves of a type tree, while aggregate types and pointers are the intermediate nodes. Figure shows a typical type tree of a C struct. A type tree is good at preserving type hierarchy info which may be extremely useful in type checking. For example, when checking a expression \texttt{*a}, compiler first check if the root of the type tree of a is a pointer. If not, error message will be printed and semantic checking fails. Otherwise, the type of the expression result is the subtree of the only child of the root. Also, a type tree enables us to implement complex type nesting, which will be discussed later on. CIBIC has support for user-defined types, which are defined via the keyword ``\texttt{typedef}''. However, ``\texttt{typedef}'' is notoriously difficult to deal with due to the ambiguity caused by the language design. For example, in ``\texttt{int A}'', A is a \textbf{variable} of integer type, but in ``\texttt{A a}'', A is a user-defined \textbf{type}. The subtle semantic difference is caused by context. In former case, A is identified as a identifier token, while in latter case, identified as a type specifier. The meaning of a token should be made clear during lexical analysis which does not take in account of context. So the most direct and effective way to implement \texttt{typedef} is to hack the lexer and parser. CIBIC maintains a ``\texttt{typedef\_stack}'' to denote current parsing status. When a parser has just read a type specifier, before it moves on, it invokes ``\texttt{def\_enter(FORCE\_ID)}'' to notify ``\texttt{typedef\_stack}'' the subsequent string token must be an identifier instead of a type specifier. As for ``\texttt{typedef}'' statements, the parser will invoke ``\texttt{def\_enter(IN\_TYPEDEF)}'' to record the newly defined typename by adding an entry to a hash table. In the lexer, when a string token is being read, it invokes ``\texttt{is\_identifier}'' to make sure whether the string is an \texttt{IDENTIFIER} or a \texttt{USER\_TYPE}. Figure demonstrates a very subtle use of \texttt{typedef}, which can be parsed perfectly by CIBIC. \begin{listing}[H] \centering \RecustomVerbatimEnvironment{Verbatim}{BVerbatim}{} \begin{minted}{c} /* It's quite common to define a shorthand `I' for `struct I'. */ typedef struct I I; /* Declaration of a function with parameter `a' of user-defined type `I'. */ int incomp(I a); /* The definition of `I' is postponed. */ struct I { int i, j; }; /* Function definition of previous declared one. */ int incomp(I a) {} /* Define `b' as an int type. */ typedef int b; int main() { /* Variable `b' is of type `b', an integer actually. */ I i; b b; incomp(i); } \end{minted} \caption {Code Snippet to Track Down Location} \end{listing} \subsection{Complex Declaration and Function Pointer} \section{Intermadiate Representation} \subsection{Single Static Assignment Form} \subsection{Phi-functions} \subsection{Register Allocation} \section{Performance and Optimization} \end{document}