Exercises Section 1.1.1
Exercise 1.1.1: What's the difference between a compiler and an interpreter?
A compiler is a program that can read a program in one language -- the source language -- and translate it into an equivalent program in another language -- the target language. An important role of the compiler is to report any errors in the source program that it detects during the translation process.
An interpreter is another common kind of language processor. Instead of producing a target program as a translation, an interpreter appears to directly execute the operations specified in the source program on inputs supplied by the user.
Exercise 1.1.2: What are the advantages of
(a) a compiler over an interpreter
(b) an interpreter over a compiler?
a. The machine-language target program produced by a compiler is usually much faster than an interpreter at mapping inputs to outputs.
b. An interpreter can usually give better error diagnostics than a compiler, because it executes the source program statement by statement.
Exercise 1.1.3: What advantages are there to a language-processing system in which the compiler produces assembly language rather than machine language?
- The compiler may produce an assembly-language program as its output, because assembly language is easier to produce as output and is easier to debug.
Exercise 1.1.4: A compiler that translates a high-level language into another high-level language is called a source-to-source translator . What advantages are there to using C a target language for a compiler?
- For the C language there are many compilers available that compile to almost every hardware.
Exercise 1.1.5: Describe some of the tasks that an assembler needs to perform.
- It translates from the assembly language to machine code. This machine code is relocatable.
