The ART of compiler construction projects

Abstract

Student projects in compiler construction courses are often limited to the implementation of toy languages, making the project's scope manageable but also restricting the number of interesting input programs. ART (Array Removal Transformation) is a language whose compiler translates array-based ART programs into array-less toy language programs which use only simple (non-aggregate) types. This allows algorithms to be expressed in toy languages that would not otherwise be feasible.ART's translation process creates large input files to stress-test student compilers, which are often not subjected to such testing.

Enbug

“…Testing of student code has been done for decades, of course, and various techniques are published (e.g., [3,5,12]). We are not aware of any prior use of deliberate bug insertion, nor does there seem to be any work on inserting exploitable flaws into programs as we can do with enbug, for educational or other purposes.…”

“…"3 The latest GDB allows Python scripting, so this is not a major limitation 4. Strictly speaking, flex and bisonc++.…”

Towards Automated Management of Compiler Assignments

“…ART (Aycock, 2003) is a tool which helps to create more complex test programs for compilers written as course projects. In this kind of projects the compiled language is often a simple toy language which lacks more complex structures like arrays.…”

Making compiler construction projects relevant to core curriculums

“…They will use this assignment, together with other provided big programs, to exercise their compilers. Contrary to tiny languages such as J-- [5], Tiger is rich enough so that compiling higher level languages to Tiger is not needed. Almost concurrently they start writing the scanner and parser.…”