Compiler Assignment- 4

Compiler

A compiler is a special program that processes statements written in a particular programming language and turns them into machine language or “code” that a computer’s processor uses. Typically, a programmer writes language statements in a language such as Pascal or C one line at a time using an editor. The file that is created contains what are called the source statements. The programmer then runs the appropriate language compiler, specifying the name of the file that contains the source statements.

Towards the end of the 1950s, machine-independent programming languages were first proposed. Subsequently, several experimental compilers were developed. The first compiler was written by Grace Hopper, in 1952, for the A-0 programming language. The FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first complete compiler, in 1957. COBOL was an early language to be compiled on multiple architectures, in 1960.

A-0, however, was the only single-pass compiler built. Hopper believed A-0 should be a one-pass compiler. The information defining a problem came from one tape unit and the program was written on another because UNIVAC I had only 1,000 words of storage, leaving little room for anything but the basic steps of the compiling process.