ERROR HANDLING
Lecture on 27/08/2013
PPT: 11CS10037 SAHIL ARORA
Syntax Error Handling
● Next few lectures will focus on the nature of
syntactic errors and general strategies for
error-recovery.
● If a compiler had to process only correct
programs, its design would be extremely
simple. However it is expected to Assist the
programmer in locating and tracking errors.
● One should note that a programming language
does not specify how a compiler should
respond to errors. It is actually left entirely to
the compiler designer.
Review: Common Programming
Errors
■ Semantic Errors: Type mismatches between
operators and operands. Like, a return statements
with return type void.
■ Syntactic Errors: Misplaced semicolons, extra or
missing braces.
■ Lexical errors: Misspellings of keywords,
identifiers, and operators.
■ Logical Errors : Incorrect reasoning or plain
carelessness might result in errors like
interchangeably using = and == operators.
Challenges of Error Handling
Viable-Fixable property: detecting an error as soon
as a prefix of the input cannot be completed to
form a string of the language. Goals of an
Error Handler:
● Reporting presence of errors, clearly and
accurately.
● Recovering from errors quickly enough to
detect subsequent errors.
● Add minimal overhead to the processing of
correct programs.
Error recovery
● There is no universally acceptable method.
● The simplest method is for the parser to quit
with the appropriate error message, at the first
instance of an error.
● Problem? Subsequent errors will not be
detected.
● Solution? If the parser can restore itself to a
state where processing can continue, future
errors can be detected.
● In some cases compiler stops if errors pileup.
Error Recovery Strategies
● Panic Mode Recovery: The parser discovers
an error. It then discards input symbols till a
designated set of synchronizing token is found.
● Synchronizing tokens selected are such that
their role in the program is unambiguous, like
Delimiters ; } etc. Advantage? Simple and
never goes into an infinite loop.
● Drawback: Skips considerable amount of input
when checking for additional errors
Phrase-level Recovery
● Local Correction by parser on remaining
input, by some string which allows parser to
continue.
● Replacing comma by semicolon, inserting
extra semicolon etc.
● Drawbacks: Improper replacement might lead
to infinite loops. More importantly, if the error
has occurred before the point of detection.
● Advantage: It can correct any input string.
Error Productions
● A method of anticipating common errors that
might be encountered.
● Augmenting the grammar for the language at
hand, with productions that generate
erroneous constructs.
● Such a parser will detect anticipated errors
when an error production is used.
● Advantage: Error diagnostics will be readily
available for such anticipated errors.
Global Corrections
● Ideally minimum changes should be made to
the input string.
● Given an input string x, algorithm finds parse
tree for a related string y, such that number of
insertions, deletions, and token changes
required for converting x to y is minimum.
● Drawback: Too costly to implement in terms of
both time and space, and only theoretical.
● It is however used as a yardstick for evaluating
error-recovery techniques.