Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools

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Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
The cover of the second edition, showing a knight and dragon
Author	Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman and Monica S. Lam
Language	English
Publisher	Pearson Education, Inc
Publication date	1986, 2006
ISBN	ISBN 0-201-10088-6, ISBN 0-321-48681-1

Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools ^[1] is a famous computer science textbook by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman about compiler construction. Although two decades have passed since the publication of the first edition, it is widely regarded as the classic definitive compiler technology text.

It is known as the Dragon Book because its covers depict a knight and a dragon in battle, a metaphor for conquering complexity. The first edition is informally called the “red dragon book” to distinguish it from the second edition and from Aho & Ullman’s Principles of Compiler Design (1977, sometimes known as the “green dragon book” because the dragon on its cover is green).

A new edition of the book was published in August 2006.

Topics covered in the first edition include:

Compiler structure
Lexical analysis (including regular expressions and finite automata)
Syntax analysis (including context-free grammars, LL parsers, bottom-up parsers, and LR parsers)
Syntax directed translation
Type checking (including type conversions and polymorphism)
Run-time environment (including parameter passing, symbol tables, and storage allocation)
Code generation (including intermediate code generation)
Code optimization

1 Second edition
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Second edition

Following in the tradition of its two predecessors, the second edition features a dragon and a knight on its cover, designed by Strange Tonic Productions; for this reason, the series of books is commonly known as the Dragon Books. Different editions in the series are further distinguished by the color of the dragon. This edition is informally known as the purple dragon. Monica S. Lam of Stanford University became the fourth co-author with this edition.

The second edition includes several additional topics that are not covered in the first edition. New topics include