Introduction to Compiler Construction in a Java World

Download

Click the following link to download the latest release of j-- up-to-date with bug fixes (recommended):

http://www.cs.umb.edu/j--/j--.zip

Click the following link to download the original release of j-- published with the book in December 2012:

http://www.cs.umb.edu/j--/orig-j--.zip

Installation

Setting Up j-- for Command-Line Execution

• Unpack j--.zip into some folder. We will refer to this folder as $j. Configure the environment variable PATH to include $j/j--/bin.

• Install J2SE 7 or later and configure the environment variable PATH to include the path to the Java binaries. For example, on Windows, PATH might include C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0\bin.

• Install Ant 1.8.2 or later, set the environment variable ANT_HOME to point to the folder where it is installed, and configure environment variable PATH to include $ANT_HOME/bin.

You are now ready to work with j-- compiler. To compile and test the compiler using Ant, execute the appropriate Ant target as follows:

$j/j--> ant <target>

If no target is specified, the default (runCompilerTests) target is executed. To obtain a list of available Ant targets, execute the following command:

$j/j--> ant help

The j-- compiler can be executed directly on the command line using the script $j/j--/bin/j--. For example $j/j--/tests/pass/HelloWorld.java can be compiled using j– as follows:

$j/j--> j-- tests/pass/HelloWorld.java

The class file HelloWorld.class produced under $j/j--/pass/ can be run as follows:

$j/j--> java pass.HelloWorld

The full command-line syntax for the j-- script is as follows:

Usage: j-- <options> <source file>
where possible options include:
  -t Only tokenize input and print tokens to STDOUT
  -p Only parse input and print AST to STDOUT
  -pa Only parse and pre-analyze input and print AST to STDOUT
  -a Only parse, pre-analyze, and analyze input and print AST to STDOUT
  -s <naive|linear|graph> Generate SPIM code
  -r <num> Max. physical registers (1-18) available for allocation; default = 8
  -d <dir> Specify where to place output files; default = .

Setting Up j-- in Eclipse

• Install J2SE 7 or later and set the environment variable JAVA_HOME to point to the installation folder. For example, on Windows, JAVA_HOME might be set to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0.

• Install Eclipse 3.7 or later.

• Setup an Eclipse project for j-- as follows:

  • Unpack j--.zip into a temporary folder, say /tmp.

  • In Eclipse, click the File → New → Project … menu to bring up the New Project dialog box. Select Java Project and click Next. In the New Java Project dialog box, type “j--” for Project Name, make sure JRE (Java Run-time Environment) used is 1.7 or later, and click Finish. This creates an empty Java project called “j--” in the current workspace.

  • In the Project Explorer pane on the left, select the “j--” project. Click File → Import … menu to bring up the Import dialog box. Under General, select File System as the Import Source, and click Next. Choose “/tmp/j--” as the From directory, select “j--” below, and click Finish. Answer Yes to All to the question on the Question pop-up menu. This imports the j-- files into the “j--” project. Once the import is complete, Eclipse will automatically build the project. The automatic build feature can be turned off, if necessary, by clicking the Project → Build Automatically menu.

To build the j-- project manually, select the project in the Project Explorer window and click the Project → Build Project menu. This runs the default (runCompilerTests) target in the Ant file $j/j--/build.xml. To run a different target, edit the following line in the Ant file:

<project default="runCompilerTests">

and change the value of the default attribute to the desired target.

In order to run and debug the compiler within Eclipse, a Launch Configuration has to be created, which can be done as follows:

• Click the Run → Run … menu to bring up the Run dialog box. Select Java Application, and click the New Launch Configuration button.

• Give a suitable name for the configuration. Select “j--” for Project and type “jminusminus.Main” for Main class.

• In the (x) = Arguments tab, type appropriate values for Program arguments; these are the same as the arguments for the $j/j--/bin/j-- script described. For example, type “-t tests/pass/HelloWorld.java” to tokenize the j-- test program HelloWorld.java using the hand-written scanner.

• Click Apply and Close.

• You can have as many configurations as you like. To run or debug a particular configuration, click Run → Run … or Run → Debug … menu, select the configuration, and click Run or Debug. The output (STDOUT and STDERR) messages from the compiler are redirected to the Console pane.

License

Each software made available here is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.