Principles of Compiler Design
Encyclopedia
Principles of Compiler Design, by Alfred Aho
and Jeffrey D. Ullman, is a classic textbook on compiler
s for computer
programming language
s.
It is often called the "dragon book" and its cover depicts a knight
and a dragon in battle; the dragon is green, and labelled "Complexity of Compiler Construction", while the knight wields a lance labeled "LALR parser generator
". The book may be called the "green dragon book" to distinguish it from its successor, Aho, Sethi & Ullman's Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
, which is the "red dragon book". The second edition of Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
added a fourth author, Monica S. Lam
, and the dragon became purple; hence becoming the "purple dragon book."
The back cover offers a different viewpoint on the problem - the dragon is replaced by windmills, and the knight is Don Quixote.
The book was published by Addison-Wesley
, ISBN 0-201-00022-9. The acknowledgments mention that the book was entirely typeset at Bell Labs
using troff
on the Unix
operating system
, which at that time had been little seen outside the Labs.
Alfred Aho
Alfred Vaino Aho is a Canadian computer scientist.-Career:Aho received a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science from Princeton University...
and Jeffrey D. Ullman, is a classic textbook on compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
s for computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s.
It is often called the "dragon book" and its cover depicts a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
and a dragon in battle; the dragon is green, and labelled "Complexity of Compiler Construction", while the knight wields a lance labeled "LALR parser generator
LALR parser generator
An LALR parser generator is a software tool that reads a BNF grammar and creates an LALR parser which is capable of parsing text files written in the computer language defined by the BNF grammar...
". The book may be called the "green dragon book" to distinguish it from its successor, Aho, Sethi & Ullman's Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools is a famous computer science textbook by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman about compiler construction...
, which is the "red dragon book". The second edition of Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools is a famous computer science textbook by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman about compiler construction...
added a fourth author, Monica S. Lam
Monica S. Lam
Monica Sin-Ling Lam is a professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford, and Founder and Chief Scientist of MokaFive.-Professional biography:...
, and the dragon became purple; hence becoming the "purple dragon book."
The back cover offers a different viewpoint on the problem - the dragon is replaced by windmills, and the knight is Don Quixote.
The book was published by Addison-Wesley
Addison-Wesley
Addison-Wesley was a book publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, best known for its textbooks and computer literature. As well as publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributed its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service...
, ISBN 0-201-00022-9. The acknowledgments mention that the book was entirely typeset at Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
using troff
Troff
troff is a document processing system developed by AT&T for the Unix operating system.-History:troff can trace its origins back to a text formatting program called RUNOFF, written by Jerome H. Saltzer for MIT's CTSS operating system in the mid-1960s...
on the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, which at that time had been little seen outside the Labs.