System Programming syllabus

Derived reading outline. Source text split at semicolons, line breaks and sentence boundaries, not an official topic hierarchy.

• Fundamentals of system software and its components, difference between system and application software, basic machine architecture, instruction cycle, addressing modes, and machine/assembly language concepts.
• Overview of language processors including assembler, compiler and interpreter with phases of compilation and Bootstrapping, Assembler design covering symbol, literal and pool tables, directives, forward references, macro processor, and one-pass and two-pass techniques for Assembler and Macro Processor.
• Basics of linker, loader, system utilities, Types of errors, error detection and diagnostics.
• Case Study: Development of System Programming Tools at Microsoft

Derived reading outline. Source text split at semicolons, line breaks and sentence boundaries, not an official topic hierarchy.

• Macroprocessors: Introduction, macro definition and macro call, macro expansion, nested macro calls, advanced macro facilities, functions and basic tasks of a macro processor, features and design issues of macro processors, macro processor design options, design of macro preprocessor and macro assembler, one-pass and two-pass macro processors.
• Linkers & Loaders: Introduction to linkers and loaders, relocation and linking concepts, design of a linker, self-relocating programs, linking in MS- DOS, linking of overlay structured programs, static and dynamic linking.
• Loaders and loading process, different loading schemes such as compile-and-go loaders, general loader schemes, direct loaders, absolute loaders.
• Comparison of linkers and loaders.
• Case Study: macro expansion and program relocation using a two-pass macro processor and relocating loader for executing an assembly language program.

Derived reading outline. Source text split at semicolons, line breaks and sentence boundaries, not an official topic hierarchy.

• Programming Language Grammars, Classification of Grammar,Ambiguity in Grammatical Specification, Context Free Grammar.
• Lexical analysis: role of lexical analyzer, tokens, patterns and lexemes, lexical errors, and regular definitions for language constructs such as strings, sequences, and comments.
• Transition diagrams and finite automata for token recognition, reserved words and identifiers with suitable examples.
• Scanning, Parsing, Parsing fundamentals, syntax analysis, Top Down Parsing- LL, Bottom up Parsing-LR, syntax-directed translation concepts, and basic error handling and recovery mechanisms.
• Case Study: LEX/FLEX and YACC/BISON—introduction, specification and features, working flow, and applications in compiler construction, language processing, and syntax analysis.

Derived reading outline. Source text split at semicolons, line breaks and sentence boundaries, not an official topic hierarchy.

• Compiler : Introduction, Definition, and Functions of a Compiler
• Structure of a Compiler
• Data Structure used in Compiling, Scope Rules, Memory Allocation,Compilation of Regular Expression, Compilation of Control Structure.
• Phases of a Compiler
• Lexical Analysis, Syntax Analysis, Semantic Analysis, Intermediate Code Generation, Code Optimization, and Target Code Generation.
• Interpreter: Definition and working of interpreter, interpreter vs. compiler, use cases of interpreters, performance considerations, Examples: JavaScript interpreters Debugger: Need for debugging tools, types of program errors, Debugging techniques, Overview of popular debuggers (GDB, IDE debuggers) Case Study: GCC (GNU Compiler Collection)

Derived reading outline. Source text split at semicolons, line breaks and sentence boundaries, not an official topic hierarchy.

• Device Driver: Introduction, Definition ,Types :Character device drivers, Block device drivers, Network device drivers, Printer and display driver.
• System Utilities : File management utilities, Disk management tools , Backup and recovery utilities, Compression utilities.
• Runtime Support Systems : Runtime libraries, Garbage collectors, Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers , Virtual machines (JVM, .NET CLR) Virtualization and Container Software : Hypervisors (VMware, VirtualBox, KVM), Container engines (Docker) Case Study : Virtualization Using Type-2 Hypervisor: A VirtualBox