Implementing data flow analysis in single pass parser

Hi all,

I am new to compiler writing and need some help in implementing some
of the classical algorithms for data flow analysis given in the Dragon
book. I am trying to come up with a method to synthesize pointers in
the C program to VHDL or Verilog so that it can be translated into
hardware circuits. For this I should be able to first identify
pointers in the C program. I read the chapter 10.8 in dragon book
"Dealing with aliases" which vaguely gives a method to determine
pointers in each basic block of the program. It looks to me like it
can be implemented only by multiple parses of the source to achieve
the desired convergence.

I have written a parser to parse the CFG version of the C code dumped
by the gcc option "gcc -fdump-tree-cfg <filename.c>". Its a single
pass parser. I am stuck at this point of how to implement the pointer
identification further. I previously implemented algorithm for finding
the reaching definitions (algorithm 10.2) as a post parse one and it
was a success.

Can someone look into the compiler book and let me know if I can
implement this using a single parse or do I need to change the
implementation method ?.

Thanks a lot!

K7...

There are several papers on synthesizing C pointers to hardware
including the following one:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/237630.html

I have only read the introduction and abstract but it seems to be
suggesting a way of analyzing which variables a pointer might be
pointing to in order to synthesize it into hardware.

Most compilers, including gcc, already have an alias analysis pass, so
it might save you time if you can find a way to use the existing code.
I think tree-ssa-alias.c of gcc-4.3.1 is the pass you might be
interested in.

On Jul 28, 2:23 am, johnhull2008 <johnhull2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are several papers on synthesizing C pointers to hardware
> including the following one:http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/237630.html
>
> I have only read the introduction and abstract but it seems to be
> suggesting a way of analyzing which variables a pointer might be
> pointing to in order to synthesize it into hardware.
>
> Most compilers, including gcc, already have an alias analysis pass, so
> it might save you time if you can find a way to use the existing code.
> I think tree-ssa-alias.c of gcc-4.3.1 is the pass you might be
> interested in.

Hey John,

Thanks for your reply. That was the first paper that I read on pointer
synthesis. Its a pretty good idea. Thanks for your suggestions.

Regards,
Madhu...