[yotic]

I have this code for a recursive descent parser but i don't really understand it and im having trouble following the operation of it. I was given this code by my teacher and he told me to read through to understand my assignment better but i dont really get it, i dont even understand how you can even use the code to parse anything, i believe this may be written from a C coder perspective while i am a c++ user, then again i could be wrong. just need to know what all everything means.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

void error(const char *what)
{
    fprintf(stderr, "ERROR: %s\n", what);
	cin.get();
    exit(1);
}

void compileLiteral(const char *& s)
{
    int v = 0;
    while (*s >= '0' && *s <= '9')
    {
        v = v*10 + *s++ - '0';
    }
    printf("    mov  eax, %i\n", v);
}

void compileSymbol(const char *& s)
{
    printf("    mov  eax, dword ptr ");
    while ((*s >= 'a' && *s <= 'z') ||
           (*s >= 'A' && *s <= 'Z') ||
           (*s >= '0' && *s <= '9') ||
           (*s == '_'))
    {
        putchar(*s++);
    }
    printf("\n");
}

void compileExpression(const char *&);

void compileTerm(const char *& s)
{
    if (*s >= '0' && *s <= '9') 
	{
        // Number

        compileLiteral(s);
    } 
	else if ((*s >= 'a' && *s <= 'z') || (*s >= 'A' && *s <= 'Z') || (*s == '_')) 
	{
        // Variable
        compileSymbol(s);
    } 
	else if (*s == '-') 
	{
        // Unary negation
        s++;
        compileTerm(s);
        printf("    neg  eax\n");
    } 
	else if (*s == '(') 
	{
        // Parenthesized sub-expression
        s++;
        compileExpression(s);
        if (*s != ')')
            error("')' expected");
        s++;
    } 
	else {
        error("Syntax error");
    }
}

void compileMulDiv(const char *& s)
{
    compileTerm(s);
    for (;;)/>
    {
        if (*s == '*') 
		{
            s++;
            printf("    push eax\n");
            compileTerm(s);
            printf("    mov  ebx, eax\n");
            printf("    pop  eax\n");
            printf("    imul ebx\n");
        } 
		else if (*s == '/') 
		{
            s++;
            printf("    push eax\n");
            compileTerm(s);
            printf("    mov  ebx, eax\n");
            printf("    pop  eax\n");
            printf("    idiv ebx\n");
        } 
		else break;
    }
}

void compileAddSub(const char *& s)
{
    compileMulDiv(s);
    for (;;)/>
    {
        if (*s == '+') 
		{
            s++;
            printf("    push eax\n");
            compileMulDiv(s);
            printf("    mov  ebx, eax\n");
            printf("    pop  eax\n");
            printf("    add  ebx\n");
        } 
		else if (*s == '-') {
            s++;
            printf("    push eax\n");
            compileMulDiv(s);
            printf("    mov  ebx, eax\n");
            printf("    pop  eax\n");
            printf("    sub  ebx\n");
        } 
		else break;
    }
}

void compileExpression(const char *& s)
{
    compileAddSub(s);
}

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    if (argc != 2) 
	{
		error("Syntax: simple-compiler <expr>");
		cout << endl;
	}
	compileExpression(argv[1]);
    return 0;
}

[Oler1s]

Do you understand what a recursive descent parser is? This is a pretty straightforward parser.

Start from from main and read line by line. Where do you find yourself lost?

[yotic]

i understand the bulk of the code and what the functions do however im not sure on how you would use this code, he said that i can run it and play with it to see what outputs i get but i don't understand how to put input into it to get ANY output at all, im fairly new so please try to bare with me on this.

also every time i run this code i continue to get the error string from the error function in the upper portion of the code.

This post has been edited by yotic: 04 December 2012 - 09:38 PM

[Oler1s]

If you look at the main function, you should see compileExpression(argv[1]). That means you need to enter the expression as a commandline argument.