Names, Scopes and Bindings.ppt

CS415 - Spring 2005 Names, Scopes and Bindings Aaron Bloomfield CS 415 Fall 2005* Binding A binding is an association between two things, such as a name and the thing it represents Example: int x When this statement is compiled, x is bound to a memory space Binding Time The time at which the association between two items is created There are many different binding times that can be implemented: Language design time Language implementation time Program writing time Compile time Link time Load time Run time Binding Times Language design time These are control flow constructs, primitives, and other semantics Think of reserved words: i.e. if, for, else, while, etc. Language implementation time These include I/O couplings System dependent things such as max heap and stack sizes Think of constants: MAX_INT, etc. In Algol, this included the I/O procedure names Binding Times Program writing time When you the programmer choose data structures and names Compile time The compiler maps high level constructs to machine code Think of the assembly for a compiled procedure Link time Separate compilation means not every part of a program has to be compiled at the same time Libraries are linked to your program and bound Binding Times Load time For primitive operating systems Binds physical addresses Most OSes do this during link time with virtual addresses Run time Very broad term covering the span of execution Values to variable bindings occur here Binding Times Very important to design and implementation of programming languages Early bindings = greater efficiency Later bindings = greater flexibility Scope rules The textual region of the program in which a binding is active is its scope Static scoping is more common in modern programming langauges Found in C, C++, Pascal Static scope All scoping can be determined at compile time Most often this is done with a textual top-to-bottom scan Most basic static scope rule: everything has global scope Fortran Implementation Global sco