Code Transformation

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Construct grammars to parse existing languages
• Design ASTs to capture a target language or DSL
• Develop AST re-writing algorithms to transform and optimise code

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Develop test and verification infrastructure to support development and optimisation
• Create a source-to-source code translator
• Create a compiler from an existing imperative language to a given instruction set
• Implement a parser for a context-free language

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Describe common compiler optimisations and predict how it might affect high-level code.
• Theory of grammars and parsing automata
• Explain how high-level language constructs are lowered into instruction sequences
• Identify the advantages and disadvantages of compiler, interpreted, and embedded languages.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.