An analysis of Pascal programs in compiler writing

Abstract

A method and results of static and dynamic analysis of Pascal programs are described. In order to investigate characteristics of large systems programs developed by the stepwise refinement programming approach and written in Pascal, several Pascal compilers written in Pascal were analysed from both static and dynamic points of view. As a main conclusion, procedures play an important role in the stepwise refinement approach and implementors of a compiler and designers of high level language machines for Pascal‐like languages should pay careful attention to this point. The set data structure is one of the characteristics of the Pascal language and statistics of set operations are also described.