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Concept
Symbol table
Summary
In computer science, a symbol table is a data structure used by a language translator such as a compiler or interpreter, where each identifier (or symbol), constant, procedure and function in a program's source code is associated with information relating to its declaration or appearance in the source. In other words, the entries of a symbol table store the information related to the entry's corresponding symbol.
A symbol table may only exist in memory during the translation process, or it may be embedded in the output of the translation, such as in an ABI for later use. For example, it might be used during an interactive debugging session, or as a resource for formatting a diagnostic report during or after execution of a program.
The minimum information contained in a symbol table used by a translator and intermediate representation (IR) includes the symbol's name and its location or address. For a compiler targeting a platform with a concept of relocatability, it will also contain relocatability attributes (absolute, relocatable, etc.) and needed relocation information for relocatable symbols. Symbol tables for high-level programming languages may store the symbol's type: string, integer, floating-point, etc., its size, and its dimensions and its bounds. Not all of this information is included in the output file, but may be provided for use in debugging. In many cases, the symbol's cross-reference information is stored with or linked to the symbol table. Most compilers print some or all of this information in symbol table and cross-reference listings at the end of translation.
Numerous data structures are available for implementing tables. Trees, linear lists and self-organizing lists can all be used to implement a symbol table. The symbol table is accessed by most phases of a compiler, beginning with lexical analysis, and continuing through optimization.
A compiler may use one large symbol table for all symbols or use separated, or hierarchical symbol tables for different scopes.
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