How to write a compiler ?

This series of blogs acts as an analysis and deep dive into compiler design.

Currently I am building EEL. EEL is eBPF Language, this series of blogs consists of all the things I learned throughout the process of building it.

What is a compiler?

A compiler is a program that translates source code written in one language into another representation, usually machine code or an intermediate form that can be executed by a computer.

Modern compilers are made up of several different pieces which come together as a puzzle to make a compiler.

These pieces are:

• Lexer
• Parser
• Semantic Analyzer
• IR Generator
• Optimizer
• Code Generator
• Assembler
• Linker

We will analyze each of these one by one in great detail.

Source Code
 ↓
 Lexer
 ↓
 Tokens
 ↓
 Parser
 ↓
 AST
 ↓
Semantic Analysis
 ↓
 IR
 ↓
 Optimizer
 ↓
Code Generator
 ↓
 Assembler
 ↓
 Linker
 ↓
 Executable

Throughout the blogs we will take following pseudocode as reference:

fn add(a,b){
 price = 10;
 total = price + 42;
 print(total);
}

GitHub: https://github.com/pie-314/compiler-blogs/