Publisher's Synopsis
This text is aimed at 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates who are taking compiling courses, and have an understanding of Modula-2 and Data Structures. It provides a first introduction to recursive descent compiling, assembling, linking and loading. Assuming no previous knowledge of these topics, or of their theoretical background, it deliberately introduces only minimal mathematical theory. Written in an accommodating style, it is a step-by-step guide to the intricate mechanism of recursive descent compiling. Concrete and specific, the book teaches mainly by example. The text builds a compiler in stages and is therefore easier to follow than a more abstract approach; compiles directly into a simple assembly language so that processes are made more meaningful by seeing concrete and specific code production during the early development of a compiler; and uses Modula-2 which is introduced module-by-module.
