Re: Mathematics skills for writing a compiler?

lucky7456969@hotmail.com (Jack) writes:


> What mathematical skills do I need in order to build an "average" compiler?
> such as numerical methods, CFG, DFS.... etc


If you're building a parser or lexer, you'll need to know a bit about
finite-state machines.


Numerical methods really only come into it for representing and doing
constant-folding on floating-point numbers. Especially if you are
building a cross-compiler, you need a good library for manipulating
arbitrary-precision floating-point numbers, independent of the float
representations supported by the host machine.


The main thing you need for compiler optimization and back-end work is
a good background in graph and set algorithms, IMO. For program
analysis passes, you also often have to be able to define an abstract
algebra over whatever class or datatype you are using to contain the
results of the analysis.


-Sandra

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