A.1 Glossary

Contributions to this section (as for the rest of this documentation) will be greatly appreciated.

activation block

Portion of dynamically allocated memory holding all the information a (recursive) function needs at runtime. It typically contains arguments, automatic local variables etc. Implemented by the class frame::Frame (see TC-5).

build

The machine/architecture on which the program is built. For instance, EPITA students typically build their compiler on GNU/Linux. Contrast with “target” and “host”.

curriculum

From WordNet: n : a course of academic studies; “he was admitted to a new program at the university” (syn: “course of study”, “program”, “syllabus”).

Guru of the Week

GotW

See Bibliography.

HAVM

HAVM is a Tree (HIR or LIR) programs interpreter. See HAVM.

host

The machine/architecture on which the program is run. For instance, EPITA students typically run their Tiger Compiler on GNU/Linux. Contrast with “build and “target”.

IA-32

The official new name for the i386 architecture.

scholarship

It is related to “scholar”, not “school”! It does not mean “scolarité”.

From WordNet:

• − n 1: financial aid provided to a student on the basis of academic merit.
• − 2: profound knowledge (syn: “eruditeness”, “erudition”, “learnedness”, “learning”).

See “schooling” and “curriculum”.

schooling

From WordNet:

• − n 1: the act of teaching at school.
• − 2: the process of being formally educated at a school; “what will you do when you finish school?” (syn: “school”).
• − 3: the training of an animal (especially the training of a horse for dressage).

snippet

A piece of something, e.g., “code snippet”.

stack frame

Synonym for “activation block”.

static hierarchy

A hierarchy of classes without virtual methods. In that case there is no (inclusion) polymorphism. For instance:

struct A     { };
struct B: A  { };

SPIM

SPIM S20 is a simulator that runs programs for the MIPS R2R3000 RISC computers. See SPIM.

target

The machine (or language) aimed at by a compiling tool. For instance, our target is principally MIPS. Compare with “build” and “host”.

traits

Traits are a useful technique that allows to write (compile time) functions ranging over types. See Traits, for the original presentation of traits. See Modern C++ Design, for an extensive use of traits.

vtable

For a given class, its table of pointers to virtual methods.