programming language translators

Question 1

Translating assembly code

Answer 1

Assembly language is translated into machine code by a program called an assembler​

Typically, one assembly code instruction is translated into one machine code instruction​

Question 2

Source code

Answer 2

The assembly code program is the input to the assembler​

This is known as the source code​

Question 3

object code​

Answer 3

The output is the machine code instructions produced by the assembler, called the object code​

The object code can be saved and run whenever needed​

Question 4

Uses of assembly code​

Answer 4

Assembly code is used when a program needs to execute as fast as possible, occupy as little space as possible or manipulate individual bits and bytes​

Typical uses include embedded systems, real-time systems, sensors, mobile phones, device drivers and interrupt handler​

Question 5

Compilers​

Answer 5

A compiler is a program that translates a high-level language such as Visual Basic or Delphi into object code​

Question 6

The compilation process​

Answer 6

A compiler is a complex program which has several phases
lexical
syntactic
semantic
It produces intermediate code, optimises it, then generates the machine code​

It will not generate the machine code it there are any errors in the program​

Question 7

Errors detected by the compiler​

Answer 7

The compiler will find errors such as syntax errors or missing subroutines​

When all errors of this kind have been corrected, the compiler will produce relocatable code, since it does not know the absolute addresses where the object code will be loaded​

Question 8

Advantages of a compiler​

Answer 8

Once a program has been compiled, the object code can be distributed and the compiler is not needed to run the program​

The object code runs faster than interpreted code​

The object code is more secure, as machine code cannot easily be read and copied by someone wishing to modify the code and sell it as their own product​

Question 9

interpreters​

Answer 9

The third type of translator is an interpreter​

An interpreter translates high-level instructions into an intermediate form, which it then executes​

No object code is produced​

Question 10

Advantages of an interpreter

Answer 10

An interpreter is useful in education

It is useful during development when a programmer may want to test a small piece of code

Both compilers and interpreters are available for most high-level languages​

Question 11

Bytecode​

Answer 11

Some compilers such as the Java compiler compile the source code into an intermediate form known as bytecode​