Topic: symbol table

Summary

A symbol table associates labels with descriptions. The descriptions may include code, textual definition, current values, size information, interface information, or anything that may be useful to the language processor. It is the interface between user symbols and machine encoding. The contents of a symbol table entry is the symbol's meaning for a language processor. Assemblers and compilers make heavy use of symbol tables. Languages such as Forth depend on a symbol dictionary to convert user input into execution. Reduction and definition languages use symbol tables to store symbol definitions. The file directory is a disk resident symbol table associating physical files with labels. Symbol tables may be accessed by a list, sorted tree, or hash table. (cbb 5/80)

Subtopic: symbol table as compiler

QuoteRef: ahoAV_1973 ;;788 "Symbol tables are an integral feature of virtually all compilers

Subtopic: dictionary structure

Quote: dictionary by triples ; the functional form 'fetch' can retrieve value given a name [»backJ8_1978a]

QuoteRef: sammJE_1969 ;;434 -label indicates following sub-rules form a table with one literal constituent on left side. allows sorted indexed table

Subtopic: history

Quote: lookup subroutine names by converting to a 20-digit number and searching a table

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