Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools [Hardcover]

Alfred V. Aho (Author), Ravi Sethi (Author), Jeffrey D. Ullman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201100886 | ISBN-13: 978-0201100884 | Publication Date: January 1, 1986 | Edition: US ed

This introduction to compilers is the direct descendant of the well-known book by Aho and Ullman, Principles of Compiler Design. The authors present updated coverage of compilers based on research and techniques that have been developed in the field over the past few years. The book provides a thorough introduction to compiler design and covers topics such as context-free grammars, fine state machines, and syntax-directed translation. 0201100886B04062001

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This introduction to compilers is the direct descendant of the well-known book by Aho and Ullman, Principles of Compiler Design. The authors present updated coverage of compilers based on research and techniques that have been developed in the field over the past few years. The book provides a thorough introduction to compiler design and covers topics such as context-free grammars, fine state machines, and syntax-directed translation.

0201100886B04062001

About the Author

Ravi Sethi, director of Computing Science Research, has been at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey since 1976. He has held teaching positions at Pennsylvania State university and the University of Arizona, and has taught at Princeton University and Rutgers. Dr. Sethi is co-author of the "dragon book", Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools and has written numerous articles. His books have been translated in Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Korean.

0201100886AB04062001

Product Details

• Hardcover: 796 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; US ed edition (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201100886
• ISBN-13: 978-0201100884
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #328,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Compiler Design
  • #31 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Compilers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding reference for C, Fortran, and Pascal compilers, March 14, 2000

By 

Daniel Mall (San Gabriel, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Hardcover)

During each compiler stage (lexical analysis, syntax analysis, translation, type checking, translation, code generation, and code optimization) multiple methods, strategies, and algorithms are presented. This comprehensive book examines items that are unique to the various languages presented (Fortran, C, and Pascal); there are even sections on dealing with estimation of types (10.12) and symbolic debugging of optimized code (10.13). Wow! The exercises are thorough, challenging, and thought provoking. Examples are interleaved with the discussion and algorithms. There is an excellent set of historical and bibliographic information at the end of each chapter. The use of automated tools such as lex, yacc, and compiler-generators is discussed throughout the text. This is an advanced book, however a good understanding of compilers can be obtained without understanding the details of every algorithm.

88 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The reference book ... depending on your needs, April 19, 2002

By 

G. Avvinti (Sicily, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Hardcover)

Once again, I want to point out the title of the book: "Principles, Techniques and Tools".
I think there are two kinds of compilers books available today: "Principles and Theory centered" ones and "Modern Compilers design and implementation" ones.
One might wonder what's the difference between the two.

The former kind is more suited for a course on theoretical aspects that lay the foundation of compiler construction. DFAs, NFAs and Regular expression along with relations and equivalence between the them; FSAs minimizations; grammars and Push-down FSAs in details, ambiguities and and how to cope with them; and so on.
This is what I mean for "theoretical aspects". And these topics are covered in great details in this book. Almost the same details they (the authors) placed on writing a more specific book as "Introduction to Automata Theory ...".
Same situation applies to principles on more application- oriented topics. Take the example of LR parsing. You can face the topic from a more theoretical side, dealing with details on bottom up parsing (still, it implies an in-depth knowledge of grammars theory), handles and (viable) prefixes, SLR or canonical LR or LALR parsers and techniques for the relative tables construction by hands (and for this, add a detailed and solid knowledge of Push-down FSAs along with grammars). By hands, at least, if principles are what matter in your course.
If you expect to find these topics (with this depth) in a book of the other kind, you might get mislead. As I did when I still had not clear this distinction, before I took the course.

The latter kind of books is more suited for a more pragmatic course. One where real, "modern" compilers are at hands, and probably written as homeworks. In this case, time being always limited in a university course, one (the instructor) will likely have to give up with those theoretical aspects (or just mention them) and focus on coding techniques and modern compiler studying. But ... perhaps, for these purposes books like Grune's "Modern Compiler Design", or Pittman's "Art of Compiler Design, The: Theory and Practice" or, at some degrees, Muchnick's "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation" will be more suited.
Back to the LR parsing example, more pragmatic compilers design courses will (for time constraints) just have a glance on principles and spend a considerable time learning YACC. To do both things you would have to take a course on YACC alone (it requires time to exploit all of its advanced features, you can be sure of this).

All this said, once again: which is the best book ? The one that best fits your needs. And in fact, my needs were those of my course, which was completely centered on theoretical aspects. And for this course, the Dragon book (as it is better known since its cover) proved to be perfect, definitely no matter it was published on 1986: FSAs and grammars and their theory is (for all practical purposes) still the same since even before then.

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introductory Compiler Text, September 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Hardcover)

This is a comprehensive and easy to understand text. It covers all the fundamental stages of compiler design, with plenty of explanation (both practical and theoretical). It doesn't exhaustively cover every conceivable topic, but it does leave you with a good taste of what's involved. Of course, it is not a book for beginning programmers, and there are very few code examples. Judging by the comments of some reviewers, I would suspect that they gave poor reviews because they lacked the prerequisite background (familiarity with a good HLL like C, data structures, mathematical background etc). As with any 'advanced' topic in computer science, there is quite a lot expected from you. Upon first reading, some topics occasionally seem overwhelming. Welcome to Earth. This is where your library card comes in. Do a little research and then come back to this text; you'll find that it is well organized and extremely clear. If you want a cookbook this book isn't for you. If you want a solid understanding of compiler fundamentals then this book is your best bet.