Compiler Creation

Principles of Compiler Design is avaliable pretty cheap on Amazon.

You can get a free PDF copy of Basics of Compiler Design

You can find other resources here

You can use tools like Bison, Lex, and Yacc to do some of the work for you. Given a grammar defintion, usually in Backus Naur Form, they'll output code for a parser and lexical analyzer for that grammar.

The famous, "Lets build a compiler" series by Jack Crenshaw.

http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/

Its a quick and practical guide to building a compiler. Not overly done with theory. Which helped me ease into things I think.

Is C++ an okay language for compiler design or is there a better alternative?

I would think that if you have to ask that question, you aren't ready to make a compiler. A compiler is probably one of the most difficult software projects to undertake, next to an MMOG and an operating system.

Dude: don't do it. Instead, embed a python or Lua interpreter. Creating a compiler is what you do if you want to create a new programming language.

Quote:

Original post by Mike.Popoloski I would think that if you have to ask that question, you aren't ready to make a compiler. A compiler is probably one of the most difficult software projects to undertake, next to an MMOG and an operating system.

Yeah I have a book on how to make your own compiler in vb.net and that was complicated enough.

Quote:

Original post by billmason Is C++ an okay language for compiler design or is there a better alternative?

It's 'okay'. I tend to favor O'Caml as a compiler development language, mostly because this is what it was created for in the first place (and it's pretty darn good at it, too).

Is it possible to use Python scripts in a C++ program?? That sounds like an excellent alternative.

Too right it is!

Quote:

Is it possible to use Python scripts in a C++ program??

Absolutely. Useful search terms are “embedding” Python and “extending” Python. A number of forum posts have been made on it, and obviously Google will get you an over abundance of material on embedding.

EDIT: Sigh, reminder: don't watch TV and type forum posts at the same time.

in fact there's an excellent article on this subject by SiCrane!