SYMBOL TABLE ORGANIZATION

THE SYMBOL TABLE

When identifiers are found, they will be entered into a symbol

table, which will hold all relevant information about identifiers.

This information will be used later by the semantic analyzer and
the code generator.
Lexical
Analyzer

Syntax
Analyzer
Symbol
Table

Semantic
Analyzer

Code
Generator

SYMBOL TABLE
A compiler needs to collect and use information about the names appearing in

the source program. This information is entered into a data structure called a
symbol table.
The symbol table is built up during the lexical and syntactic analysis.
The information collected about a name includes: 1- The string of characters by which it is denoted.
2- It's type (e.g. integer, real, string).
3- It's form (e.g. a simple variable, a structure).
4- It's location in memory.
5- Other attributes depending on the language.

 Each entry in the symbol table is a pair of the form (name,

information).
Each time a name is encountered, the symbol table is searched to
see whether that name has been seen previously.
If new, it is entered into the table.
Information about that name is entered into the table

lexical and syntactic analysis.

during

 The information collected in the symbol table is used during several

stages in the compilation process.

in semantic analysis, i.e, in checking uses of names are consistent with
their implicit or explicit declarations.
used during code generation-to know how much and what kind of runtime storage must be allocated to a name.

SYMBOL TABLE REQUIREMENTS

As a minimum we must be able to

quick insertion of an identifier
quick search for an identifier
efficient insertion of information (attributes) about an id
quick access to information about a certain id
Space- and time- efficiency

SYMBOL TABLE ENTRIES

STORING CHARACTERS
Method 1: A fixed size space within each entry large
enough to hold the largest possible name. Most names will
be much shorter than this so there will be a lot of wasted
storage
Method 2: Store all symbols in one large separate array.
Each symbol is terminated with an end of symbol mark
(EOS). Each symbol table record contains a pointer to the
first character of the symbol.

CONTENTS OF A SYMBOL TABLE

A simple table is a table with two fields, a name field and

information field. We require several capabilities of the symbol

table. We need to be able to:

12345-

Determine whether a given name is in the table.

Add a new name to the table.
Access the information, associated with a given name.
Add new information for a given name.
Delete a name or group of names from the table.

SYMBOL TABLE DATA STRUCTURES

Issues to consider
Operations required
Insert
Add symbol to symbol table

Look UP
Find symbol in the symbol table (and get its attributes)

Insertion is done only once

Look Up is done many times
Need Fast Look Up.

CHAP 8 SYMBOL TABLE

SYMBOL TABLE
ORGANIZATION

basic operations: enter() and find()

considerations: number of names
storage space
retrieval time
organizations:
<1> unordered list (linked list/array)
<2> ordered list: If a list of names in an array is kept ordered, it may be searched using binary search
binary search on arrays
expensive insertion
(+) good for a fixed set of name (e.g. reserved words, assembly opcodes)
<3> binary search tree
On average, searching takes O(log(n)) time.
However, names in programs are not chosen randomly.
<4> hash table: most common

LIST DATA STRUCTURE

The simplest and easiest to implement DS for a symbol table is
a linear list of records
In this method an array is used to store names and associated
information
New names can be added in the order as they arrive
The pointer available is maintained at the end of all stored
records
To retrieve information about a name, we search from the

SELF ORGANIZING LISTS

Using linked link.

A link field is added to each record
We search the records in the order pointed by the link of

the link field

A pointer first is maintained to point to first record of the
symbol table

BINARY SEARCH TREE

Another approach to organize symbol table is that we add two link

fields i.e. left and right child

we use these field as binary search tree. All names are created as
child of root node that always follow the property of binary tree i.e.
name <name ie and Namej <namei.
These two statements show that all smaller name than Namei must
be left child of name otherwise right child of namej
(1) While P nil do
(2) If NAME = NAME (P) then /* Name found, take action on success */
(3) Else if NAME< NAME (P) then P:= LEFT (P) /* visit left child */
(4) Else /* NAME (P) < NAME */ P:= RIGHT (P) /* visit right child*/
/* if we fall through the loop, we have failed to find NAME */

SYMBOL TABLE DATA STRUCTURE

Hash table:
Run the symbol name through a hash function to create
an index in a table.
If some other symbol has already claimed the space then
rehash with another hash function to get another index,
etc.
Hash Table must be large enough to accommodate
largest number of symbols.