The objective of this lab is to write a type checker and an interpreter for a fragment of the C++ programming language. The type checker should check the program and send it to the interpreter at success. The interpreter should run the program and correctly perform all its input and output actions. At type checking failure, a type error should be reported.
Before the lab can be submitted, the program has to pass some tests, which are given on the course web page via links later in this document.
The recommended implementation is via a BNF grammar processed by the BNF Converter (BNFC) tool. The syntax tree created by the parser should then be processed further by a program using the skeleton generated by BNFC.
The fragment of C++ covered is smaller than in Laboration 1, and does not really include any C++ specific features not available in C. You can use the grammar given here, also explained in the Lecture notes, Chapter 2.
The type checker and the interpreter code will be roughly 300-800 lines together, depending on the programming language used.
All BNFC supported languages can be used, but guidance is guaranteed only for Haskell and Java.
The type system and the interpreter are partially characterized by formal rules in the course lecture notes, chapters 4 and 5.
In the type checker, the recommended procedure is two passes:
In the interpreter, do a similar thing:
main().
Only the four built-in types
int
double
bool
void
are taken into account. Every expression has one of these types.
Types of functions in the symbol table can be represented in any way that stores their argument and return types. For instance, the function header
int f (double x, bool b)
will create a symbol table entry (not actual code)
f ↦ ([double, bool], int)
that maps the name f to a pair whose first component
is the list of argument types and the second component is the
return type.
A program is a sequence of function definitions.
A program may also contain comments and preprocessor directives, which are just ignored by the parser (see below).
An interpretable program must have a function main of type int
that takes no arguments. It may or may not have a return statement.
int main () {
...
}
A function definition has a type, a name, an argument list, and a body. Example:
int foo(double x, int y)
{
return y + 9 ;
}
The language has four built-in functions dealing with input and output:
void printInt(int x) // print an integer and a newline in standard output
void printDouble(double x) // print a double and a newline in standard output
int readInt() // read an integer from standard input
double readDouble() // read a double from standard input
(These functions are implemented in file prelude.cc.
You can #include it in a test case if you want run the test through a C compiler.)
Typing rules
The same function name may be used in at most one function definition.
All return statements in a function body must
return an expression whose type is the
return type of the function.
You don't need to check that there actually is a return statement.
An argument list is a comma-separated list of argument declarations.
It is enclosed in parentheses ( and ).
An argument declaration has a type and an identifier, for instance
int x
Notice that argument declarations with multiple variables
(int x, y) are not included. A declaration that occurs
as a statement (as shown below), can also have more than one variable.
A function body is a list of statements enclosed
in curly brackets { and } .
Typing rules
An argument list may not declare the same variable more than once.
The type of a variable cannot be void.
I.e., the following definition has two errors in the argument list.
int error (int x, void y, bool x) { ... }
Any expression followed by a semicolon ; can be used as a statement.
Remark: While any expression is allowed, only expressions with some side effect make really sense here. A side effect could be an assignment or a call to a function that makes some input or output action.
Variable declarations have one of the following formats:
int i ;
double x, y, z ;
int i = 6 ;
Typing. The initializing expression must have the declared type.
The type cannot be void.
Statements returning an expression, for example
return i + 9 ;
Typing. The type of the returned expression must be the same as the return type of the function in which it occurs.
While loops, with an expression in parentheses followed by a statement, for example:
while (i < 10) ++i ;
Typing. The expression must have type bool.
if with an expression in parentheses followed by
a statement, else, and another statement.
(The else-branch cannot be omitted.)
Example:
if (x > 0) return x ; else return y ;
Typing. The expression must have type bool.
Any list of statements (including empty list) between curly brackets. For instance,
{
int i = 2 ;
{
int i = 3;
{
}
}
i++ ;
}
Typing rules
A variable may only be declared once on the same block level. The parameters of a function have the same level as the top-level block in the body. For example, the following function contains both violations.
int scope_violation (int x) {
int x = 1;
{
int y = 2;
int y;
}
return x;
}
The following table gives the expression constructs, their precedence levels, and their associativity. The associativity of operators is given as left, right, or none. For binary operators, in general any of the three associativity is meaningful. For pre-, post-, and mixfix operators, at most one of left or right associativity makes sense, and the alternative is non-associative. As they are bracketed, the arguments in a function call can be expressions of any level. Otherwise, some subexpressions have to be one precedence level above of the main expression to implement the required associativity.
Note. The table is not exactly the same as in the C++ standard. Also note that these precedence levels are already implemented in the provided grammar.
| level | expression forms | assoc | explanation | type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | literal | - | literal | literal type | |
| 15 | identifier | - | variable | declared type | |
| 14 | f(e,...,e) |
none | function call | return type | |
| 14 | v++, v-- |
none | in/decrement | operand type (int or double) | |
| 13 | ++v, --v |
none | in/decrement | operand type (int or double) | |
| 12 | e*e, e/e |
left | mult, div | operand type (int or double) | |
| 11 | e+e, e-e |
left | add, sub | operand type (int or double) | |
| 9 | e<e, e>e, e>=e, e<=e |
none | comparison | bool | |
| 8 | e==e, e!=e |
none | (in)equality | bool | |
| 4 | e&&e |
left | conjunction | bool | |
| 3 | e||e |
left | disjunction | bool | |
| 2 | v=e |
right | assignment | type of both sides | |
Typing rules
Integer, double, and boolean literals have their usual types.
Variables have the type declared in the nearest enclosing block. A variable must be declared before it is used in an expression.
The arguments of a function call must have types corresponding to the argument types of the called function. The number of arguments must be the same as in the function declaration (thus the C++ default argument rule is not applied). Notice that only identifiers are used as functions.
Increments and decrements only apply to int and double variables.
The arithmetical and comparison operations apply to two operands of the same type,
which is int or double.
This means there are no implicit coercions from int to double.
Equality and inequality apply to two operands of the same type,
which is int, double, or bool.
Conjunction and disjunction apply to operands of type bool only.
In assignments, both sides must have the same type, and this is then also the type of the assignment expression. Notice that only variables are used as left hand sides.
(There are no qualified constants or template instantiations.)
We include integer literals and floating point literals.
There are also two boolean literals, true and false.
(Notice that the names true and false were not specified
as literals in Lab 1, so you probably treated them as identifiers there.)
An identifier is a letter followed by a list of letters, digits, and underscores.
There are three kinds of comments.
/* and */
// to the end of a line or the file
# to the end of a line or the file
(preprocessor directive)
Comments cannot be nested.
The top-level interpreter is run by by evaluating the expression main().
The return value is ignored.
There are four types of values:
true and false
A value is the result of evaluating an expression in an environment.
The purpose of an environment is to bind variables to their values. Our environment is structured into a stack of environment blocks. Whenever we enter a new scope, we push a new block on the stack which we remove again when we leave the scope.
Blocks are necessary to implement evaluation of recursive functions. For instance:
int factorial (int n) {
int r;
if (n < 2) return 1;
else {
r = factorial (n - 1);
return r * n;
}
}
The evaluation of factorial(2) will bind n to 2, and
then call factorial(1), which has to bind n to 1.
It returns 1 which is bound to r but then we need
the old value of n to correctly compute r * n.
Thus, we need a stack of environments to preserve the old bindings
and access them again after we return from a function call.
A program is a sequence of function definitions. Each function has a parameter list and a body, which is a sequence of statements.
The evaluation of a function call starts by evaluating the arguments and building a new environment block where the received values are assigned to the argument variables (a.k.a. parameters) of the function.
The statements in the body are then executed in
the order defined by their textual order as altered by while
loops and if conditions.
The function returns a value, which is obtained from the return statement.
After encountering a return, all the following statements in the function body should be ignored (not evaluated).
If the return type is void, no return statement is required.
After the function has returned the environment block holding the bindings of the function parameters is removed. This block should be on the top of the stack, thus, it can be simply popped.
A declaration, e.g.
int i ;
adds a variable to the current environment. Its value is initialized if and only if the declaration includes an initializing expression, e.g.
int i = 9 ;
An expression statement, e.g.
i++ ;
is evaluated, and its value is ignored.
A return statement is executed by evaluating its expression argument.
The value is returned to the caller of the function, and no more
statements in the function body are executed.
A block of statements, e.g.
{
int i = 3 ;
i++ ;
}
is interpreted in an environment where a new block is pushed on the environment stack at entrance, and popped at exit.
A while statement, e.g.
while (i < 10) {
i++ ;
j-- ;
}
is interpreted so that the condition expression is first evaluated.
If the value is true, the body is interpreted in the resulting
environment, and the while statement is executed again.
If the value is false, the body is not interpreted.
The body of a while statements needs to be interpreted in a
fresh context block even if it is just a single statement.
Example:
while (i > 0) int i = 0;
The i declared by the body is not identical with the i in
the condition. Thus, if the condition i > 0 holds initially,
this should be an infinite loop.
An if-else statement, e.g.
if (x < 10) i++ ; else printInt(j) ;
is interpreted so that the condition expression is first evaluated.
If the value is true, the then-branch (statement before else) is interpreted.
If the value is false, the else-branch (statement after else) is interpreted.
Similar to while the branches of the if statement are fresh scopes
and need to evaluated with new environment blocks. For example:
int i = 0;
if (i > 0) i++; else int i = 1;
printInt(i);
This snipped should print 0 and not 1, since the variable
declared in the else-branch is a fresh i not the i declared above.
The interpretation of an expression, also called evaluation, returns a value whose type is determined by the type of the expression.
A literal, e.g.
123
3.14
true
is not evaluated further but just converted to the corresponding value.
A variable, e.g.
x
is evaluated by looking up its value in the innermost context where
it occurs. Concretely, the environment blocks are searched for a binding
for x, where the last added block is searched first.
If the variable is not in the environment, or has no value there,
the interpreter terminates with an error message
uninitialized variable x
Note that this error should be raised by the following snippet
int x = 1;
{
int x;
printInt(x);
}
since the initialized x is shadowed by an uninitialized x.
A function call, e.g.
foo (x+y, i<0, i++)
is interpreted by first evaluating its arguments from left to right. The environment is then looked up to find out how the function is interpreted on the resulting values.
Calls of the four built-in functions can be hard-coded as special cases in the expression evaluation code.
A postincrement,
i++
has the same value as its body initially has
(here i). The value of the variable
i is then incremented by 1.
i-- correspondingly decrements i by 1.
If i is of type double, 1.0 is used instead.
A preincrement,
++i
has the same value as i plus 1. This incremented value
replaces the old value of i. The decrement and double
variants are analogous.
The arithmetic operations addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,
a + b
a - b
a * b
a / b
are interpreted by evaluating their operands from left to right.
The resulting values are then added, subtracted, etc., by using
appropriate operations of the implementation language. We are not
picky about the precision chosen, but suggest for simplicity
that int should be int and double should be double.
Comparisons and equality tests,
a < b
a > b
a >= b
a <= b
a == b
a != b
are treated similarly to the arithmetic operations, using comparisons of the implementation language. The returned value is a boolean.
Conjunction,
a && b
is evaluated lazily: first a is evaluated. If the
result is true, also b is evaluated, and the
value of b is returned. However, if
a evaluates to false, then false
is returned without evaluating b.
Disjunction,
a || b
is also evaluated lazily: first a is evaluated. If the
result is false, also b is evaluated, and the
value of b is returned. However, if
a evaluates to true, then true
is returned without evaluating b.
Assignment,
x = a
is evaluated by first evaluating a. The resulting
value is returned, but also the environment is changed by assigning
this value to the innermost occurrence of x.
For Haskell and Java there are stubs that can be extended to the full solution. Just download one of the following tar archives, unpack, write the code, test, pack the archive again, and submit to fire.
These packages contain the grammar, stubs for type checker and interpreter, and suitable makefiles. If you start from these stubs, you will likely match the requirements for the solution format as detailed in the following:
The interpreter must be a program called lab2, which is
executed by the command
lab2 <SourceFile>
and prints its output to the standard output. The output at success must be just the output defined by the interpreter.
The output at failure is an interpreter error, or a
TYPE ERROR or a
SYNTAX ERROR,
depending on the phase at which the error occurs.
These error messages should also give some useful explanation,
which we leave to your imagination.
The input can be read not only from user typing on the
terminal, but also from standard input redirected from
a file or by echo. For instance,
./lab2 fibonacci.cc < test-input
echo 20 | ./lab2 fibonacci.cc
The interpreter is submitted as archive of source files that can be compiled by typing make.
If you want to write the interpreter in another language, the
procedure is the same: send a tar package
and make sure the interpreter can be compiled in a normal Unix enviroment
by typing make.
Run the testsuite before submitting the lab.
If you have any problems getting the test program to run, or if you think that there is an error in the test suite, contact the teachers via the course Google group.
Source file good.cc:
int main ()
{
int i = readInt() ; //5
printInt(i) ; //5
printInt(i++) ; //5
printInt(i) ; //6
printInt(++i) ; //7
printInt(i) ; //7
}
Running the interpreter:
% echo 3 | ./lab2 good.cc
3
3
4
5
5
Source file bad.cc:
int f (double c)
{
int n = 1 ;
while(c) ++n ;
}
Running the type checker
% lab2 bad.cc
TYPE ERROR
condition c in while: expected bool, found double
Source file bad.cc:
int main ()
{
int i ;
printInt(i) ;
printInt(i++) ;
printInt(i) ;
printInt(++i) ;
printInt(i) ;
}
Running the interpreter
% lab2 bad.cc
uninitialized variable i
Thus it is assumed that the type checker does not detect uninitialized variables.
Your interpreter must pass the test suite and meet the specification in this document in all respects. The test suite contains both good and bad programs. The good programs must be executed correctly, whereas the bad ones must fail in appropriate ways in either the type checker or the interpreter.
The solution must be written in an easily readable and maintainable way. In particular, tailoring it for the programs in the test suite is not maintainable!
Submit your lab by using Fire. Please include exactly all the files that are required for building your solution, including a Makefile. Do not however submit any generated files.