CS 4240
Compilers and Interpreters
Spring 2025
Announcements:

Instructor:
Qirun Zhang,
Office: 2324 Klaus
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM or by appointment
Email: qrzhang@gatech.edu

Teaching Assistants:
Ethan Fox,
Office: Open lounge area in front of KACB 2319
Office Hours: See Piazza
Email: efox36@gatech.edu

Jinghao Jiang,
Office: Open lounge area in front of KACB 2319
Office Hours: See Piazza
Email: jjiang409@gatech.edu

Tejas Joshi,
Office: Open lounge area in front of KACB 2319
Office Hours: See Piazza
Email: tejas.joshi@gatech.edu

Ben Mikek,
Office: Open lounge area in front of KACB 2319
Office Hours: See Piazza
Email: bmikek@gatech.edu

Andy Wanna,
Office: Open lounge area in front of KACB 2319
Office Hours: See Piazza
Email: awanna3@gatech.edu

Lectures:
Time: Mon/Wed 9:30 AM - 10:45 PM
Location: Scheller 200

Course Summary:
This course will cover the principles and foundations of compiler design. The course project will be structured around the design of a compiler for a small, but expressive, imperative language to be translated for execution on a simulator of the MIPS processor. After successfully completing the course, students will be able to design and develop all major components of a compiler.

References:

Assignments:
  • Homework 1
    • Deadline: 1/29/2025 by 23:59 pm EST.

  • Homework 2
    • Deadline: 3/3/2025 by 23:59 pm EST.

  • Homework 3
    • Deadline: 4/16/2025 by 23:59 pm EST.

  • Worksheets
    • Deadline: Each lecture day by 23:59 pm EST.

Grading:
Grading breakdown:
  • Written Homework: 15%
  • Programming Projects: 30%
  • Midterm Exam: 20%
  • Final Exam: 30%
  • Class Participation: 5%
  • Project BONUS: 10%

Late assignment submission policy:
  • Within 24 hours after the assignment is due: 50% point deduction;
  • More than 24 hours late: 100% point deduction.

Schedule (tentative):

Date Topic Reading Remark
1/6 Compiler Structure, Intermediate Representations
  • [CT11] Chapter 1; Sections 5.3.1 - 5.3.3
  • Project BONUS assigned
  • Homework 1 assigned
1/8 Control Flow Graphs, Reaching Definitions
  • [CT11] Sections 5.2.2, 5.3.4
  • Project 1 assigned.
1/13 Reaching Definitions, Data Flow Analysis
  • [CT11] Page 491 of Section 9.2.4
1/15 Redundancy Elimination, Value Numbering, Dominator
  • [CT11] Sections 8.3, 8.4.1, 8.5.1, 9.2.1
1/20 No class (school holiday)
1/22 Lazy Code Motion, Available Expression Analysis
  • [CT11] Sections 10.3, 9.2.4
1/27 Available Expression Analysis, Constant Propagation
  • [CT11] Sections 9.2.4, 9.3.6 (skip material related to SSA form)
1/29 Project 1 & Tiger IR Help Session
  • Homework 1 due.
2/3 Copy Propagation, Constant Propagation Revisited
  • [CT11] Section 9.2.4
2/5 Instruction Selection
  • [CT11] Sections 11.1 - 11.4
  • Project 1 due.
  • Project 2 assigned.
2/10 Peephole Matching, Register Allocation
  • [CT11] Sections 11.5, 13.4
2/12 Register Allocation (contd)
  • [CT11] Section 13.4
2/17 Instruction Scheduling
  • [CT11] Sections 12.1 - 12.3
  • Homework 2 assigned.
2/19 MIPS Processor Architecture, SPIM simulator
2/24 Procedure Abstraction, MIPS Calling Convention
  • [CT11] Sections 6.1 - 6.5
2/26 Global Instruction Scheduling, Software Pipelining
  • [CT11] Sections 12.4, 12.5
3/3 Static Single Assignment Form
  • [CT11] Section 9.3
  • Homework 2 due.
3/5 Midterm Review (Part 1)
3/10 Midterm Review (Part 2)
  • Project 2 due.
3/12 Mid Term
3/17 No class (school break)
3/19 No class (school break)
3/24 Lexical Analysis, Introduction to Parsing
  • [CT11] Sections 2.1 - 2.3
  • Project 3 assigned.
3/26 Context Free Grammars, Top Down Parsing
  • [CT11] Sections 3.1 - 3.3.1
  • Homework 3 assigned.
3/31 LL(1) Parsing
  • [CT11] Sections 3.3.1, 3.3.3
4/2 Finite State Automata
  • [CT11] Sections 2.4, 2.5
4/7 Attribute Grammars, Type Checking
  • [CT11] Sections 4.1 - 4.3
4/9 ANTLR Overview and Demonstration
4/14 Course Review
4/16 Homework 3 Help Session
  • Homework 3 due.
  • Project 3 due.
  • Project BONUS due.

Misc:
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