Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools is a computer science textbook by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman about compiler construction. Although more than two decades have passed since the publication of the first edition, it is widely regarded as the classic definitive compiler technology text.
The first edition is informally called the 'red dragon book' to distinguish it from the second edition and from Aho & Ullman’s 1977 Principles of Compiler Design sometimes known as the 'green dragon book' 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
- directed translation
- new data flow analyses
- parallel machines
- JIT compiling
- garbage collection
- new case studies.
