Top-Down

and Bottom-Up Parsing

Top Down Parsing Bottom Up Parsing

Top Down Parsing

Things to know: Top down parsing is constructing a parse tree for the input starting from the root and create nodes of the parse tree in preorder(depth first). A general form of top down parsing is the recursive descent parsing. A recursive descent parsing is a top down parsing technique that execute a set of recursive procedures to process the input, that involves backtracking(means scanning the input repeatedly). Backtracking is time consuming and therefore, inefficient. Thats why a special case of top down parsing was developed, called predictive parsing, where no backtracking is required. A dilemma can occur if there is a left recursive grammar. Even with backtracking, you can find the parser to go into an infinite loop. There are two types of recursion, left recursive and right recursive, based on its name, a left recursive grammar build trees that grows down to the left, while right recursive is vice versa.

Top-down Parse tree of Grammar G(Where input=id):

G= E -> T E E-> +T E | T-> F T T-> *F T | F-> (E) | id

E
T

E
E T F

E
E T T F

E
E T

id
An example of a simple production with left recursive grammar Consider the grammar: expr -> expr + term This is an example of a left recursive grammar. Whenever we call expr, the same procedure is called out, and the parser will loop forever. By carefully writing a grammar, one can eliminate left recursion from it.

expr -> expr + term, can be written as expr -> expr + term | term After obtaining a grammar that needs no backtracking, we can use the
PREDICTIVE PARSER

Top Down Parsing Techniques

Recursive-Descent Parsing
Predictive Parsing

Recursive-Descent Recursive-Descent Parsing

Parsing

A recursive-descent parsing program consists of a set of procedures, one for each nonterminal. Execution begins with the procedure for the start symbol, which halts and announces success if its procedure body scans the entire input string. General recursive-descent may require backtracking; that is, it may require repeated scans over the input. Consider the grammar with input string cad: S -> c A d A -> a b | a

S
c A d c a c a d

S
A d b c

S
A a d

Back

Predictive Parsing-a parsing technique that uses a lookahead symbol to determine if the current input arguments matches the lookahead symbol.

First and Follow

Construction of Predictive Parsing Tables

LL(1) Grammars

Error Recovery

First and Follow

First and Follow aids the construction of a predictive parser. They allow us to fill in the entries of a predictive parsing table.

a is any string of terminals , then First(a) is the set of terminals that begin the strings derived from a. If a is an empty string(), then is also in First(a). Follow (A), for a nonterminal A, to be the set of terminals a that
can appear immediately to the right of A in a sentential form.

First and Follow

Rules in computing FIRST (X) where X can be a terminal or nonterminal, or even (empty string). 1) If X is a terminal, then FIRST(X)= X. 2) If X is , then FIRST (X) = . 3) If X is a nonterminal and Y and Z are nonterminals, with a production of X -> Y Y -> Za Z-> b; then FIRST(X) = b; where FIRST(nonterminal1) -> FIRST(nonterminal2)or until you reach the first terminal of the production. In that case (FIRST(nonterminaln) =FIRST(nonterminaln+1)) 4) If X is a nonterminal and contains two productions. EX: X -> a | b; then FIRST (X) = {a , b}

First and Follow

Consider again grammar G: 1) E -> T E E -> +T E | T -> F T T -> *F T | F -> ( E ) | id 2) S -> iEtSS | a S -> eS | E -> b ANSWERS(FIRST): 1) FIRST(E) = FIRST(T) = FIRST(F) = { ( , id } FIRST (E) = { + , } FIRST (T) = { *, } 2) FIRST(S)= { i , a } FIRST(S)= { e, } FIRST(E) = { b }

First and Follow

Rules in computing FOLLOW ( X) where X is a nonterminal 1) If X is a part of a production and is succeeded by a terminal, for example: A -> Xa; then Follow(X) = { a } 2) If X is the start symbol for a grammar, for ex: X -> AB A -> a B -> b; then add $ to FOLLOW (X); FOLLOW(X)= { $ } 3) If X is a part of a production and followed by another non terminal, get the FIRST of that succeeding nonterminal. ex: A -> XD D -> aB ; then FOLLOW(X)= FIRST(D) = { a }; and if FIRST(D) contains (ex: D->aB | ), then everything in FOLLOW(D) is in FOLLOW(X). 4) If X is the last symbol of a production, ex: S -> abX, then FOLLOW(X)= FOLLOW(S)

First and Follow

Consider again grammar G: 1) E -> T E E -> +T E | T -> F T T -> *F T | F -> ( E ) | id 2) S -> iEtSS | a S -> eS | E -> b ANSWERS(FIRST): 1) FIRST(E) = FIRST(T) = FIRST(F) = { ( , id } FIRST (E) = { + , } FIRST (T) = { *, } 2) FIRST(S)= { i , a }; FIRST(S)= { e, }; FIRST(E) = {b} ANSWERS(FOLLOW): ANSWERS FOR FOLLOW: 1) FOLLOW(E) = FOLLOW(E)= { ) , $} FOLLOW (T)= FOLLOW(T)= { +, ), $} FOLLOW (F) = { +, * , ), $}

2)

FOLLOW (S) = FOLLOW (S)={ e, $} FOLLOW(E)= { t }

Construction of Predictive Parsing Tables

The general idea is to use the FIRST AND FOLLOW to construct the parsing tables. Each FIRST of every production is labeled in the table whenever the input matches with it. When a FIRST of a production contains , then we get the Follow of the production

Construction of Predictive Parsing Tables

Consider again grammar G: E -> T E E -> + T E | T -> F T T- -> *FT | F -> ( E ) | id and their First and Follow FOLLOW(E) = FOLLOW(E)= { ) , $} FOLLOW (T)= FOLLOW(T)= { +, ), $} FOLLOW (F) = { +, * , ), $}

FIRST(E) = FIRST(T) = FIRST(F) = { ( , id } FIRST (E) = { + , } FIRST (T) = { *, }

Nontermi nals E E T T F

Id E->TE

+
E->+TE

( E->TE T-FT

T->FT F-> id T-> T->*FT

E->

E->

F->(E)

T->

T->

Nontermin als

Id

+
E->+TE

E E T T F
$E $ET $ETF $ETid $ET $E $ET + $ET $ETF $ETid $ET $ETF* $ETF $ETid $ET $E $

E->TE
T->FT F-> id
STACK

E->TE
T->FT T-> T->*FT
INPUT
id + id * id $ id + id * id $ id + id * id $ id + id * id $ + id * id $ + id * id $ + id * id $ id * id $ id * id $ id * id $ * id $ * id $ id $ id $ $ $ $

E->

E->

F->(E)

T->
ACTION
E->TE T->FT F-> id T-> E->+TE T->FT F-> id T->*FT F-> id T-> Back

T->

E->

LL(1) Grammars
What does LL(1) mean? The first L in LL(1) stands for scanning the input from left to right, the second L is for producing a leftmost derivation, and the 1 for using one input symbol of lookahead at each step to make parsing action decisions. No ambiguous or left recursive grammar is LL(1).

LL(1) Grammars
There remains a question of what should be done when a parsing table has multiple-defined entries. One solution is to transform the grammar by eliminating all left recursion and then left factoring when possible, but not all grammars can yield an LL(1) grammar at all. The main difficulty in using a predictive parsing is in writing a grammar for the source language such that a predictive parser can be constructed from the grammar. To alleviate some of the difficulty, one can use a operator precedence, or even better the LR parser, that provides both the benefits of predictive parsing and operator precedence automatically.

BACK

Error Recovery
When does an error possibly occur? -An error is detected when the terminal on the top of the stack does not match the next input symbol or when the nonterminal A is on the top of the stack, a is the next input symbol, and the parsing table entry M[A, a] is empty. How can we deal with errors? Panic-mode error recovery is based on the idea of skipping symbols on the input until a token in a selected set of synch tokens appears.

Error Recovery
How does it work? Using follow and first symbols as synchronizing tokens works well. The parsing table will be filled with synch tokens obtained from the FOLLOW set of the nonterminal. When a parser looks up entry M[A,a] and finds it blank, then a is skipped. If the entry is synch, then the nonterminal is popped in an attempt to resume parsing.

Nontermin als

Id

+
E->+TE synch T-> synch

E E T T F
$E $E $E T $E TF $E Tid $E T $E T F * $E T F $E T $E $E T+ $E T $E T F $E T id $ET $E $

E->TE
T->FT F-> STACK id T->*FT synch INPUT

E->TE
T->FT F->(E)

synch E->

synch E->

synch T->

ACTIONsynch synch

synch T->

) id * + id $ id * + id $ id * + id $ id * + id $ id * + id $ * + id $ * + id $ + id $ + id $ + id $ + id $ id $ id $ id $ $ $ $

Error, skip ) Id is in FIRST(E)

Error, M[F, +1 = synch F has been popped

Back

Error Recovery
Another error recovery procedure is the Phrase-level Recovery. This is implemented by filling in the blank entries in the parsing table with pointers to error routines. These routines can also pop symbols from the stack, change, insert or delete symbols on the input, and issue appropriate error messages. The alteration of stack symbols is very questionable and risky.

BACK

Bottom Up Parsing
A general style of bottom up parsing will be introduced, it is the shift-reduce parsing. Shift reduce parsing works based on its name, Shift and Reduce, so whenever the stack holds symbols that cannot be reduced anymore, we shift another input, and when it matches, we reduce.

Bottom Up Parsing
STACK INPUT ACTION

1) $ 2) $id1 3) $E 4) $E + 5) $E + id2 6) $E + E 7) $E + E * 8) $E + E * id3 9) $E + E * E 10)$E + E 11)$E

id1 + id2 * id3 $ + id2 * id3 $ + id2 * id3 $ id2 * id3 $ * id3 $ * id3 $ id3 $ $ $ $ $

Shift Reduce by E >id Shift Shift Reduce by E->id Shift Shift Reduce by E->id
Reduce by E-> E * E Reduce by E-> E+ E

ACCEPT