YMCA Compiler

About

A domain-specific language and compiler for matrix mathematics, built for ITBA's compiler-design course. Lexical analysis with Lex/Flex and grammar parsing with Yacc/Bison feed an abstract syntax tree that is translated into compilable C, letting users express matrix operations in a concise high-level syntax instead of hand-writing the equivalent C.

Key Features

• A custom grammar for declaring matrices and expressing matrix arithmetic (addition, multiplication, transposition, and scalar operations).
• A lexer built with Lex/Flex and a parser built with Yacc/Bison that produce an abstract syntax tree.
• A code-generation stage that emits compilable C from the source language.
• Compile-time semantic checks for matrix dimension compatibility.

Technical Challenges

• Designing an unambiguous grammar that Yacc could parse cleanly without shift/reduce conflicts.
• Validating matrix dimension compatibility at compile time rather than letting it fail at runtime.
• Managing memory for intermediate matrix results in the generated C code.

Impact & Results

Exercised the full compiler pipeline end to end — lexing, parsing, AST construction, semantic analysis, and code generation — in a single project.

Technologies Used