Syntax-directed translation

Syntax-directed translation refers to a method of compiler implementation where the source language translation is completely driven by the parser. Syntax-directed translation refers to a method of compiler implementation where the source language translation is completely driven by the parser. A common method of syntax-directed translation is translating a string into a sequence of actions by attaching one such action to each rule of a grammar. Thus, parsing a string of the grammar produces a sequence of rule applications. SDT provides a simple way to attach semantics to any such syntax. Syntax-directed translation fundamentally works by adding actions to the productions in a context-free grammar, resulting in a Syntax-Directed Definition (SDD). Actions are steps or procedures that will be carried out when that production is used in a derivation. A grammar specification embedded with actions to be performed is called a syntax-directed translation scheme (sometimes simply called a 'translation scheme'.) Each symbol in the grammar can have an attribute, which is a value that is to be associated with the symbol. Common attributes could include a variable type, the value of an expression, etc. Given a symbol X, with an attribute t, that attribute is referred to as X.t