Semantic analysis

Abstract

We have already seen how the syntax of a language allows us to analyze the structure of a program and display it as a tree, but this is only a part of the story. Structural analysis can be used to deduce the fact that the program contains a binary expression whose left operand is the identifier A, whose right operand is the identifier B and whose operator is +; it cannot tell us how to evaluate that expression. The purpose of the semantic analyzer is to derive an evaluation procedure from the structure of an expression and the attributes of its components.