COS 320: Compiling Techniques, Spring 2024

Course information

Semester: Spring 2024
Lectures: Tuesday & Thursday 1:30pm - 2:50pm
Location: Friend Center 008
Instructor: Zak Kincaid, zkincaid@cs.princeton.edu.
Teaching assistant: Shaowei Zhu
Office hours:

Monday 2-3pm CS 219 (Zak)
Wednesday 1:30-2:3pm Friend 010 (Shaowei)

Links: Canvas, Ed, Gradescope, Real world OCaml, OCaml manual, OCaml standard library, OCaml style guide.

Description

Understand the design and construction of compilers. Concepts include syntax analysis, semantics, code generation, optimization and run-time systems. Translation of imperative languages (such as C), functional languages (such as ML), and object-oriented languages (such as Java) will be studied. Students will implement a complete compiler for a small language.

Many of the course materials and assignments have been adapted from Steve Zdancewic's CIS 341 at U Penn.

Schedule

Materials below the dotted red line have not yet been updated for Spring 2024.
The (optional) readings are from Andrew W. Appel's Modern Compiler Implementation in ML.

Date	Topics	Readings
Jan 30	Introduction (OCaml slides)	Appel 1
Feb 1	X86lite	Appel 6
Feb 6	Intermediate representations I (example code)
Feb 8	Intermediate representations II (example code)	Appel 8
Feb 13	LLVM I
Feb 15	LLVM II
Feb 20	Lexing (example code)	Appel 2
Feb 22	Parsing I (example code)	Appel 3
Feb 27	Parsing II (web demo, example code)
Feb 29	Parsing III (web demo)
Mar 5	Midterm review
Mar 7	Midterm
Mar 12,14	Spring break
Mar 19	Types I (example code)
Mar 21	Types II
Mar 26	Types III
Mar 28	Data Flow Analysis & Optimization I	Appel 17
Apr 2	Data Flow Analysis & Optimization II (web demo)
Apr 4	Data Flow Analysis & Optimization III
Apr 9	Register Allocation	Appel 10
Apr 11	Control flow (web demo)
Apr 16	Loop Optimizations	Appel 18
Apr 18	High-level languages I (example code)	Appel 13,14,15
Apr 23	High-level languages II

Apr 25	Wrap-up

Assignments

There are five OCaml programming assignments in the course, which we recommmend you complete with a partner. Through these assignments you will gradually build a compiler for a small programming language. These assignments are time consuming so it would be wise to start early. Instructions for obtaining, completing, and submitting homework assignments can be found here.

Grading policies

There will be five assignments during the semester, along with a midterm and a final. Your final grade will be weighted as follows:

Component	Date	Weight
HW1: x86lite	Monday February 12, 11:00pm	10%
Hw2: LLVMlite	Monday February 26, 11:00pm	12%
HW3: Compiling Oat v.1	Monday March 25, 11:00pm	13%
HW4: Compiling Oat v.2	Monday April 15m, 11:00pm	13%
HW5: Dataflow Analysis and Register Allocation	Tuesday May 7, 5:00pm (Dean's date)	12%
Midterm Exam	Tuesday March 7 (in class)	20%
Final Exam	TBD	20%

Late policy

Assignments are due at 11pm, with a 1 hour grace period.
Each assignment can be submitted a maximum of four days late. Late assignments will be penalized 10% per day late. Penalties for up to four late days (across all assignments) are waived. If a student uses more than four late days, late passes will be applied to late work in weight order.
In case of special circumstances (e.g., illness, religious holidays, etc.), please write to zkincaid@cs.princeton.edu if you need an extension.

Conduct

For homework and assignments, discussions with others are permitted, where the goal is to aid your understanding. However, the submitted work/code should be entirely your own (and your partner, should you work in a pair).
Do not copy another person's program, or get solutions from resources outside the course.
If you have any questions or concerns, please discuss these policies with the instructors.
Conduct during exams is covered by the University Honor Code.