1

UNIT – 1

Introduction to Language Processor

UNIT -01/Lecture 01
What is the need of language processing activities that take place in computer system?
Ans. Language processing activities arise due to the differences between the manner in
which a software designer describes the ideas concerning the behavior of the software
and the way it is actually implemented inside the computer system. The designer
expresses these ideas in the application domain. These ideas are actually implemented in
the execution domain. The gap between the application domain and execution domain is
called semantic gap.

Semantic Gap

Application domain Execution domain

What are the bad/worse effects if semantic gap is covered by programmer?

Ans. Since the semantic gap is to be covered by the programmer, it means that the
designer has to specify his/her ideas directly in the machine language of the computer.
This obviously has three bad/worse effects as far as software design is concerned:
 Large development time
 Large development effort
 Poor quality and less reliable software

How do bad effects of large semantic gap tackled?

Ans. These issues are tackled by well defined steps of software engineering and the
development of programming languages (PL). The software engineering aimed at the use
of PL can be grouped into
 Specification, design and coding steps.
 PL implementation steps
Software implementation using PL introduces new domain, the PL domain between
application and execution domain. The semantic gap is now split into:
1. Specification gap between the application domain and the PL domain.
2. Execution gap between the PL domain and execution domain.
This is shown in figure below:
Specification gap Execution gap

Application domain PL domain Execution domain

The
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correctness. language.
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Therefore he has to bridge a very small specification gap as compared to the large
semantic gap between application and execution domain. He need not worry about the
direct translation of his specifications in machine language. The introduction of PL domain
provides two advantages to the programmer:
 Since the programme is now responsible only to bridge the specification gap
between application domain and PL domain, this reduces the severe consequences
of large semantic gap that existed between application and execution domain prior
to the advent of programming languages.
 The language processor provides the diagnostic capability which detects and
indicates errors in the input. This helps in improving the quality of software.

What is the specification language of application domain, PL domain and execution

domain?
Ans. The specification language for the application domain is some specification language
of the user (Structured English, data flow diagrams, flow-charts, decision tables and
decision tree). The specification language of PL domain is the programming language
itself. The specification language of execution domain is the machine language of the
computer system. We will use the term execution gap if one of the two specification
languages is machine language. In all other cases we will introduced the term specification
gap.

What do you understand by the term language processor? Explain its four versions.
Ans. Language processor is software that bridges the specification gap or execution gap.
The input to the language processor is the source program while the output of the
language processor is the target program. The languages in which these programs are
written are known as source language and target language respectively. The language
processor has four important versions:
1. Language translator: It bridges the execution gap to machine language of the
computer system. An assembler is a language translator whose source language is
an assembly language. The compiler is a language translator that is not an
assembler (source language is high-level language instead of assembly language).
In both cases, the target language is machine level language.
2. De-translator: It bridges the same execution gap as the language translator but in
reverse direction.
3. Pre-processor: It is a language processor that bridges the execution gap but it is
not the language translator.
4. Language migratory: It bridges the specification gap between two programming
languages.

Explain interpreter in details.

Ans. An interpreter is a language processor which bridges an execution gap without
generating a machine language program. An interpreter is a language translator that does
not have any target language/target program.
The absence of target program implies an absence of output interface for an
interpreter. Thus the language processing activities of an interpreter cannot be separated
from its program execution activities. Hence we can say that interpreter executes the
program written in a programming language. Thus execution gap vanishes completely.

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 3

Interpreter domain

PL Domain Execution domain

Application domain

The figure above shows the schematic representation of an interpreter, wherein the
interpreter domain encompasses PL domain and execution domain. Thus the specification
language of an interpreter domain is the specification of PL domain. Since an interpreter
also incorporates an execution domain, it is as if we have a computer that is capable of
understanding the programming language.

What do you understand by the term language processing activities? Illustrate.

Ans. The fundamental language processing activities are those that bridges:
****Specification gap, ****Execution gap
Accordingly we have two activities of the language processors:
1. Program generation activities
2. Program execution activities.
The program generation activity aims at an automatic generation of a program. The
source language here is the specification language of application domain while the target
language is typically the procedure oriented programming language. The program
execution activity organizes the execution of the program written in the programming
language on a computer system. The source language here is procedure or problem
oriented language.

What do you understand by the term program generation activity? What is program
generator domain?
Ans. The program generation activity is a language processing activity that aims at
automatic generation of a program. The program generator is software that accepts the
specification of the program and generates the target program in some target PL. The
program generator introduces new domain between the application domain and the PL
domain. The specification gap is now the gap between the application domain and the
program generator domain. This gap is smaller as compared to the specification gap
between the application domain and PL domain.
Specification gap

Application Program generator PL Execution domain

Domain Domain Domain

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 4

S.NO RGPV QUESTIONS Year Marks

Q.1 What do you understand by the term language DEC 2009
processor

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 5

Unit-01/Lecture-02
What are the advantages of introducing program generator domain between
application and PL domain? Discuss.

Ans. There are following advantages of introducing program generator domain between
application and PL domain:
1. Since the programmer needs to give the specifications directly to the computer,
rather than coding them in Pl, the specification gap now between the application
domain and the program generator domain is very small as compared to the
specification gap between application domain and the PL domain earlier. The
harder task of bridging the gap to the target programming language is now the
responsibility of the program generator.

2. The above arrangement also reduces the testing effort because proving the
correctness of the program amounts to proving the correctness of the
specifications that are input to program generator. This is much simpler than
verifying the correctness of the generated program. This task can be further
simplified by providing good diagnostic capability (i.e error generation)in the
program generator which would detect inconsistencies in specifications.

Why is it more economical to develop program generator domain as compared to

development of problem oriented language?

Ans. This is because the problem oriented language suffers a large execution gap
between PL domain and execution domain whereas the program generator has a small
semantic gap to the target PL domain which is the domain of the target procedure
oriented programming language. The execution gap between the target programming
language domain and the execution domain is bridged by the compiler or interpreter for
the PL.

Discuss the program execution activities in details.

Ans. The program execution activities aim at execution of a program. There are two
program execution activities:
Program translation: The program translation model bridges the execution gap between
the source program written in source PL language into target program written in machine
or assembly language. There are following characteristic features of the program
translation model:
1. The program must be translated before it is executed.
2. The translated program may be saved in a file. The saved program may be
executed repeatedly.
3. The program may be translated following modifications.
The machine level language program is executed by the CPU through the program
counter (PC) in following steps:
a. Fetch an instruction and PC incremented to the address of next
instruction.
b. Decode the instruction.
c. Execute the instruction.
Now the control returns to the next fetch phase. This is an instruction execution cycle.
Program interpretation:
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Interpreter reads the source program statement by statement manner. It then
 6

determines the meaning of the statement and performs actions that implement its
meaning. This includes computational and input/output actions. The program is
interpreted statement by statement basis through interpretation cycle that has following
steps:
a. Fetch the source statement
b. Analyze the statement and determine its meaning (operands and computation to
be performed)
c. Execute the meaning of the statement.
Finally we identify two important characteristics of interpretation:
a. The source program is retained in source form only. There is no target program
generated.
b. A statement is analyzed during its interpretation.

Compare translator and interpreter.

Ans. Following are the differences between translator (assembler/compiler) and the
interpreter:
Translator Interpreter
1. A fixed cost is incurred in translation 1. No translation overhead is incurred in
model. This is because the target machine the interpretation model because the
level language program so generated source program is retained in source form
incurs an effort by translator and occupies itself and target code is not generated.
memory This is advantageous if a program is
modified between executions as in
program testing and debugging.
2. Translation model is fast as compared 2. Since the source program is retained in
to interpretation model because now the source form, analyzing the meaning of the
target machine language program is source statement is quiet slow as
directly executed and there is no need to compared to the direct execution of
refer to source program machine language program.

What do you understand by the term language processing? Illustrate.

Answer. Language processing = Analysis of source program + Synthesis of target program.
The collection of language processor components engaged in the analysis of source
program constitutes analysis phase of a language processor. Components engaged in
synthesizing a target program constitutes synthesis phase of a language processor. The
specification of source language forms the basis of source program analysis. The
specification consists of three components.
1. Lexical rules: These govern the formation of valid lexical units in the
source program.
2. Syntax rules: These govern the formation of valid statements in source
language.
3. Semantic rules: These associate meaning with valid statements of the
language.
The analysis phase uses each component of source language specification to determine
the relevant information concerning the statement in the source program. Thus the
analysis of source program consists of lexical, syntax and semantic analysis.
The synthesis phase is concerned with the construction of target language
statements which have same meaning as source statements. This consists of two main
activities:
 Creation
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 Generation of target code.
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What is language processing pass? Illustrate.

Ans. Language processing pass is the processing of every statement in a source program,
or its equivalent representation, to perform a set of language processing function. For
example, for a two pass translator, following activities are carried out in two passes:
 Pass 1: It performs analysis of source program and note relevant information.
 Pass 2: Performs synthesis of target program.

What is an intermediate representation of source program? What is its use? What are
its desirable properties?
Ans. Intermediate representation of source program is that representation of source
program that reflects the effects of some, but not all analysis and synthesis tasks
performed during language processing. In this case, first pass performs analysis of source
program and reflects its effects in intermediate representation. The second pass reads
and analyses the IR, instead of source program, to synthesize target program. This avoids
repeated processing of source program. The first pass is concerned exclusively with the
source language issues. Hence it is called the front end of language processor. The second
pass is concerned with program synthesis for a specific target language. Hence it is called
back end of a language processor. Note that front and back end need not coexist in
memory. This reduces the memory requirements of a language processor.

SP Front End Back End TP

IR

Desirable properties of language processor:

 Ease of use: IR should be easy to construct and analyze.
 Processing efficiency: Efficient algorithms must exists for constructing and
analyzing IR.
 Memory efficiency: IR must be compact.

S.NO RGPV QUESTIONS Year Marks

Q.1 Short notes on compiler, interpreter, assembler Dec 2013 7
Dec 2012 7

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 8

Unit-01/Lecture-03
What are semantic actions?
Ans. All actions performed by the front end except the lexical and syntax analysis are called
semantic actions. These include actions for the following:
 Checking semantic validity of constructs in SP.
 Determining the meaning of SP.
 Constructing an IR.

Discuss the functions of front end of language processor for a toy compiler.
Ans. The front end performs lexical, syntax and semantic analysis of the source program. Each kind
of analysis involves the following functions:
1. Determine the validity of source statement from the viewpoint of analysis.
2. Determine the contents of source statements.
3. Construct a suitable representation of source statement for use by subsequent analysis
functions, or by the synthesis phase of the language processor.
The word contents has different meanings for three types of analysis of the source statement. In
lexical analysis, contents means the lexical class to which each lexical unit belongs. For syntax
analysis, contents means the syntactic structure of source statement. For semantic analysis,
contents denote the meaning of the statement-for declaration statement, it is the set of
attributes for the declared variables, while for imperative statement, it is the sequence of actions
implied by the statement.
Each analysis represents the contents of source statement in the form of
1. Tables of information.
2. Description of the source statement.
Subsequent analysis uses this information for its own purpose and adds information to these
tables or descriptions, or constructs its own tables or descriptions. For example, the syntax
analysis uses information concerning the lexical class of lexical units and constructs a
representation for the syntactic structure of source statement. Semantic analysis uses information
concerning syntactic structure and constructs the meaning of the statement. The tables and
descriptions at the end of semantic analysis form the intermediate representation (IR) of the front
end.

Discuss the outputs of the front end of language processor.

Ans. The IR produced by the front end consists of following two components:
1. Tables of information: Most important table of information constructed by front end is the
symbol table which contains information concerning all the identifiers used in the source
program. This table is constructed during the lexical analysis. Semantic analysis adds
information concerning symbol attributes while processing declaration statements. It may
also adds new names designating temporary results.
2. Intermediate code (IC): IC is a sequence of IC units. Each IC represents the meaning of one
action in SP. IC may also contain references to the information in various tables.

What are macros and macro processors? Explain in brief.

A macro is similar to a subroutine (or a procedure), but there are important Differences between
them. A subroutine is a section of the program that is written Once, and can be used many times
by simply calling it from any point in the program. Similarly, a macro is a section of code that the
programmer writes (defines) once, and then can use many times. The main difference between a
subroutine and a Macro is that the former is stored in memory once (just one copy), whereas the
Latter is duplicated as many times as necessary. Macros involve two separate phases. Handling the
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definition and Handling the expansions. A macro can only be defined once but it can be expanded
 9

many times. Handling the definition is a relatively simple process. The assembler reads the
Definition from the source files and saves it in a special table, the Macro Definition Table
(MDT).The assembler does not try to check the definition for errors, to assemble it, execute it, or
do anything else with it.

A macro processor is a program that copies a stream of text from one place to another, making a
systematic set of replacements as it does so. Macro processors are often embedded in other
programs, such as assemblers and compilers. Sometimes they are standalone programs that can
be used to process any kind of text.

Macro processors have been used for language expansion (defining new language constructs that
can be expressed in terms of existing language components), for systematic text replacements that
require decision making, and for text reformatting (e.g. conditional extraction of material from
an HTML file).

Discuss lexical analysis (scanning), syntax analysis (parsing) and semantic analysis?
Ans. Lexical analysis (Scanning) Lexical analysis identifies the lexical units in a source statement. It
then classifies the units into different lexical classes, e,g, constants, reserved id s etc. Each
identifier during this phase is described in terms of token for that identifier. The token for that
identifier take the following form (class code, number in the class). Code refer to id for identifier, C
for constant and Op for operator and number in the class is the entry number of the identifier in
the relevant table. For example, the statement a:=b+i; after the lexical analysis is written as:(id #2)
(op #5) (id #3) (op #2) (id #1) (op #10).

Syntax Analysis (Parsing): Syntax analysis processes the string of tokens, build by lexical analysis to
determine the statement class, e.g assignment statement, if statement etc. It then builds an IC
which represents the structure of the statement. The IC is passed to semantic analysis to
determine the meaning of the statement.
Consider the above example: We can draw the IC tree for a,b:real and a:=b+i; as follows:

real :=

a b a +
b i
Semantic analysis: Semantic analysis of declaration statement adds information to the symbol
table about the variables (i.e type length and dimensionality). Semantic analysis of imperative
statement identifies the sequence of actions necessary to implement the meaning of the source
statement. In both cases the structure of source statement guides the application of the semantic
rules.
As per above example, we will here demonstrate the steps to carry out semantic analysis of a:=b+i;
1. Information regarding the type of operands is added to IC tree. IC tree now looks as under.
:=

a ,real +

b, real i,int i

2. Rules of meaning governing an assignment statement indicate that the expression on the
right hand side should be evaluated first. Hence the focus shifts to the right subtree rooted
at +.
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:=
 10

a ,real +

b,real i,int

3. Rules of addition says that type conversion of i should be performed to ensure the type
compatibility of the operands. This leads to the action
A1. Convert i to real giving i*.
The IC tree now becomes
:=

a,real +

b,real i*,real
4. Rules of addition indicate that addition is now feasible. This leads to the action.
A2. Add i* to b giving temp.
IC tree now becomes:
:=

a, real temp, real

5. The assignment can now be performed. This leads to the action
A3. Store temp in a.
The analysis of the statement is complete after step 5.

Discuss the functions of the back end for the compiler

Ans. The back end performs memory allocation and code generation.
Memory allocation: At this stage the memory requirements of an identifier is computed from the
type, length and dimensionality. Accordingly, the memory is allocated and address filled in the
address field. At this particular point of time a decision whether or not to allocate the memory to
temporary variables is taken. In our particular example, the memory will not be allocated to newly
added variables i* and temp. The other variables are allocated the memory and address is filled in
address field.
S.No. Symbol Type Length Address
1. I int 2 2000
2. A real 4 2002
3. B real 4 2006
Code generation: The code generation uses the knowledge of target architecture to exploit its
instruction sets and addressing modes. The important issues in code generation are:
 Determine the places where the intermediate results (whether in memory or registers) are
to be placed.
 Determine the instructions to be used for type conversion operations.
 Determine the addressing modes to be used.
For our example for the assignment statement a:-b+i;
Following actions were taken
1. Convert i to real giving i*.
2. Add i* to b giving temp
3. Store temp in a.
The synthesis phase may decide to hold i* and temp in machine registers and may generate the
following assembly code.
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 11

ADD_R AREG, B
MOVEM AREG, A
S.NO RGPV QUESTIONS Year Marks
Q.1 Short notes on Macros and Macro Processor Dec 2009 3
June 2010 4
Q.2 Explain Macro processor & its features Dec 2013 7

Unit-01/Lecture-04

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 12

Static and dynamic binding:

Static binding: The binding performed before the execution of program begins is called static
binding.
Dynamic binding: The binding performed after the execution of program has started is called
late binding.
Static binding provides greater execution efficiency while dynamic binding provides greater
flexibility in program writing.

Write note on language processor development tools.

Ans. Need for language processor development tools: The analysis phase of the language
processor has a standard form. The source text is subjected to lexical, syntax and semantic
analysis. The result of the analysis phase is IR. Thus writing of language processors has become
very important. This has lead to the development of a set of language processor development
tools (LPDT).
Schematic of LPDT: The figure below shows a schematic of language processor development
tool that generates the analysis phase of language processor whose source language is L.
Source Program

Scanning

Grammar of L Front End Parsing FRONT

Semantic actions Generator END
Semantic
Analysis

IR
The language processor development tool requires two set of inputs:
1. Specification of grammar of a language L.
2. Specification of semantic actions to be performed in the analysis phase.

Introduction to LEX and YACC: There are two language processor development tools namely
LEX and YACC. LEX is the lexical analyzer that performs lexical analysis of SP written in a
programming language L. YACC is the parser generator that constructs the syntactic structure of
the source statement. The input to these tools is the specification of lexical and syntactic
constructs of L, and semantic actions to be performed on recognizing the constructs. The
specification consists of a set of translation rules of the form <string specification> {<semantic
action>}. Here semantic action> consist of C code that is executed when a string matching
<string specification> is encountered in the input. The figure below shows the schematic for the
development of analysis phase of a compiler for language L using LEX and YACC.

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 13

SOURCE PROGRAM IN L

SCANNER
Lexical specifications LEX

IRl
PARSER
Syntax Specifications YACC

IR/TARGET CODE

The analysis phase processes the source program to build an intermediate representation. A
single pass compiler can be built using LEX and YACC if the semantic actions are aimed at
generating target code instead of IR. Scanner also generates an intermediate representation of a
source program for use by the parser. We call it IRl to differentiate from the IR of analysis phase.

LEX: LEX accepts an input specification which consists of two components. The first component
is the specification of strings representing lexical units in L. e.g, id, constants etc. The second
component is the semantic actions aimed at building the IR. As already seen, the IR consists of
tables of information (symbol table) and a sequence of tokens representing source statement.
Accordingly semantic actions make new entries in the tables and build tokens for the lexical
units.
Example: Following is a sample input to LEX.
%{
Letter [A-Z a-z]
Digit [0-9]
}%

%%
Begin {return(BEGIN);}
End {return(END);}
:= {return(ASGOP);}
{letter} ({letter}|{digit})* {yylval=enter_id(); return(ID);}
{digit}+ {yylval=enter_num(); return(NUM);}
%%
enter_id()
{/* enters the id in symbol table and returns entry number */}
enter_num()
{
/* enters the number in the constants table and return entry number */
}
The sample input consists of following components:
1. The first component between %{ and }% defines the symbols in specifying the strings of
L. It defines the symbol Letter for any uppercase or lowercase letter and Digit to stand
for any digit.
2. The second component between %% and %% are the translation rules.
3. The third component contains auxiliary routines which can be used in semantic actions.
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YACC: Each string specification in the input to YACC resembles a grammar production. The
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parser generated by YACC performs reductions according to this grammar. The actions
associated with the string specification are executed when a reduction is made according to the
specification. An attribute is associated with every non-terminal symbol. The value of this
attribute can be manipulated during parsing. The attribute can be given any user-designed
structure. The symbol $n in the action part of a translation rule refers to nth symbol in the RHS
of the string specification. $$ represent the attribute of the LHS symbol of the string
specification.
Example: Here is the sample input to the YACC.
%%
E : E + T {$$ = gencode( + , $1, $3);}
|T {$$ = $1;}
;
T : T * V {$$ = gencode( * , $1, $3);}
|V {$$ = $1;}
;
V : id { $$ = gendesc($1);}
;
%%
gencode(operator, operand_1, operand_2)
{ /* Generates code using operand descriptors. Returns descriptor for result */

gendesc(symbol)
{ /* Refer to symbol/constant table entry. Build and return descriptor for the symbol */}

S.NO RGPV QUESTIONS Year Marks

Q.1 Write note on language processor development tools Dec 2012 7
Q.2 Short notes on Software Tools June 2010 4

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 15

Unit-01/Lecture-05
Introduction to Operating System

What Operating Systems Do - For Users, For Applications, etc.

Abstract view of the components of a computer system

 Computer = HW + OS + Apps + Users

 OS serves as interface between HW and ( Apps & Users )
 OS provides services for Apps & Users
 OS manages resources

Operating System Definitions

Resource allocator – manages and allocates resources.

Control program – controls the execution of user programs and operations of I/O devices .
Kernel – the one program running at all times (all else being application programs).

What is an Operating System?

A program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer
hardware.
Operating system goals:
Execute user programs and make solving user problems easier.
Make the computer system convenient to use.
Use the computer hardware in an efficient manner

Mainframe Systems
* Reduce setup time by batching similar jobs
* Automatic job sequencing – automatically transfers control from one job to another.
* Resident monitor
*initial control in monitor
*control transfers to job
* when job completes control transfers pack to monitor

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 16

Memory Layout for a Simple Batch Multiprogrammed Batch Systems

System Several jobs are kept in main memory at
the same time, and the CPU is multiplexed
among them.

OS Features Needed for Multiprogramming

*I/O routine supplied by the system.

*Memory management – the system must allocate the memory to several jobs.
*CPU scheduling – the system must choose among several jobs ready to run.
*Allocation of devices.

Time-Sharing Systems–Interactive Computing

*The CPU is multiplexed among several jobs that are kept in memory and on disk (the CPU is
allocated to a job only if the job is in memory).
*A job swapped in and out of memory to the disk.
*On-line communication between the user and the system is provided; when the operating
system finishes the execution of one command, it seeks the next control statement from the
user s keyboard.
*On-line system must be available for users to access data and code.

Desktop Systems

*Personal computers – computer system dedicated to a single user.

*I/O devices – keyboards, mice, display screens, small printers.
*User convenience and responsiveness.
*Can adopt technology developed for larger operating system often individuals have sole use
of computer and do not need advanced CPU utilization of protection features.
*May run several different types of operating systems (Windows, MacOS, UNIX, Linux)

Parallel Systems

*Multiprocessor systems with more than on CPU in close communication.

*Tightly coupled system – processors share memory and a clock; communication usually takes
place through the shared memory.
*Advantages of parallel system:
*Increased throughput
*Economical
*Increased reliability
*graceful
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 17

Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)

*Each processor runs and identical copy of the operating system.
*Many processes can run at once without performance deterioration.
*Most modern operating systems support SMP

Asymmetric multiprocessing
*Each processor is assigned a specific task; master processor schedules and allocated work to
slave processors.
*More common in extremely large systems

S.NO RGPV QUESTIONS Year Marks

Q.1 What are Operating System components Dec 2009 5
Q.2 Types of Operating System Dec 2009 10
June 2011 10
Dec 2013 7
Q.3 Features of Operating System Dec 2011 10
Dec 2012 7

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Unit-01/Lecture-06

Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture

Distributed Systems

*Distribute the computation among several physical processors.

*Loosely coupled system – each processor has its own local memory; processors communicate
with one another through various communications lines, such as high-speed buses or telephone
lines.
*Requires networking infrastructure.
*Local area networks (LAN) or Wide area networks (WAN)
*May be either client-server or peer-to-peer systems.
Advantages of distributed systems.
*Resources Sharing
*Computation speed up – load sharing
*Reliability
*Communications

General Structure of Client-Server

Clustered Systems

*Clustering allows two or more systems to share storage.

*Provides high reliability.
Asymmetric clustering: one server runs the application while other servers standby.
Symmetric clustering: all N hosts are running the application.

Real-Time Systems

*Often used as a control device in a dedicated application such as controlling scientific

experiments, medical imaging systems, industrial control systems, and some display systems.
*Well-defined fixed-time constraints.
*Real-Time systems may be either hard or soft real-time.
Hard real-time:
*Secondary storage limited or absent, data stored in short term memory, or read-only memory
(ROM)
*Conflicts with time-sharing systems, not supported by general-purpose operating systems.

Softany
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*Limited utility in industrial control of robotics
 19

*Useful in applications (multimedia, virtual reality) requiring advanced operating-system

features.

Handheld Systems

* Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)

* Cellular telephones
Issues:
* Limited memory
* Slow processors
* Small display screens.

Computer-System Architecture

Computer-System Operation

*I/O devices and the CPU can execute concurrently.

*Each device controller is in charge of a particular device type.
*Each device controller has a local buffer.
*CPU moves data from/to main memory to/from local buffers
*I/O is from the device to local buffer of controller.
*Device controller informs CPU that it has finished its operation by causing an interrupt.

Common Functions of Interrupts

*Interrupt transfers control to the interrupt service routine generally, through the interrupt
vector, which contains the addresses of all the service routines.
*Interrupt architecture must save the address of the interrupted instruction.
*Incoming interrupts are disabled while another interrupt is being processed to prevent a lost
interrupt.
*A trap is a software-generated interrupt caused either by an error or a user request.
*An operating system is interrupt driven.

Interrupt Handling

*The operating system preserves the state of the CPU by storing registers and the program
counter.
*Determines which type of interrupt has occurred:
*polling
*vectored interrupt system
*Separate segments of code determine what action should be taken for each type of interrupt
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 20

I/O Structure

*After I/O starts, control returns to user program only upon I/O completion.
*Wait instruction idles the CPU until the next interrupt
*Wait loop (contention for memory access).
*At most one I/O request is outstanding at a time, no simultaneous I/O processing.
*After I/O starts, control returns to user program without waiting for I/O completion.
*System call – request to the operating system to allow user to wait for I/O completion.
*Device-status table contains entry for each I/O device indicating its type, address, and state.
*Operating system indexes into I/O device table to determine device status and to modify table
entry to include interrupt.

Two I/O Methods

Device-Status Table

S.NO RGPV QUESTION YEAR MARKS

Q.1 Explain Symmetric Asymmetric Dec 2012 10
Multiprocessing

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 21

Unit-01/Lecture-07

Storage Structure

 Main memory ( RAM )

o Programs must be loaded into RAM to run.
o Instructions and data fetched from RAM into registers.
o RAM is volatile
o "Medium" size and speed
 Other electronic ( volatile ) memory is faster, smaller, and more expensive per
bit:
o Registers
o CPU Cache
 Non-volatile memory ( "permanent" storage ) is slower, larger, and less expensive
per bit:
o Electronic disks
o Magnetic disks
o Optical disks
o Magnetic Tapes

Storage-device hierarchy

Operating System Structures:-

MS-DOS Execution UNIX Running Multiple Communication Models

Programs

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MS-DOS System Structure
 22

*MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in the least space

*not divided into modules
*Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and levels of functionality are not well
separated.

UNIX System Structure

*UNIX – limited by hardware functionality, the original UNIX operating system had limited
structuring. The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts.
*Systems programs
*The kernel
*Consists of everything below the system-call interface and above the physical hardware
*Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory management, and other operating-system
functions; a large number of functions for one level.

MS-DOS Layer Structure UNIX System Structure

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 23

Unit-01/Lecture-08

Layered Approach
*The operating system is divided into a number of layers (levels), each built on top of lower
layers. The bottom layer (layer 0), is the hardware; the highest (layer N) is the user interface.
*With modularity, layers are selected such that each uses functions (operations) and services of
only lower-level layers.

An Operating System Layer

Virtual Machines

*A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its logical conclusion. It treats hardware and
the operating system kernel as though they were all hardware.
*A virtual machine provides an interface identical to the underlying bare hardware.
*The operating system creates the illusion of multiple processes, each executing on its own
processor with its own (virtual) memory.
*The resources of the physical computer are shared to create the virtual machines.
*CPU scheduling can create the appearance that users have their own processor.
*Spooling and a file system can provide virtual card readers and virtual line printers.
*A normal user time-sharing terminal serves as the virtual machine operator s console.

System Models

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 24

Advantages/Disadvantages of Virtual Machines

*The virtual-machine concept provides complete protection of system resources since each
virtual machine is isolated from all other virtual machines. This isolation, however, permits no
direct sharing of resources.
*A virtual-machine system is a perfect vehicle for operating-systems research and
development. System development is done on the virtual machine, instead of on a physical
machine and so does not disrupt normal system operation.
*The virtual machine concept is difficult to implement due to the effort required to provide an
exact duplicate to the underlying machine.

Operating-System Operations

Interrupt-driven nature of modern OSes requires that erroneous processes not be able to
disturb anything else.

Dual-Mode and Multimode Operation

Transition
from user to kernel mode

 User mode when executing harmless code in user applications

 Kernel mode ( a.k.a. system mode, supervisor mode, privileged mode ) when
executing potentially dangerous code in the system kernel.
 Certain machine instructions can only be executed in kernel mode.
 Kernel mode can only be entered by making system calls. User code cannot flip
the mode switch.

Operating System Services

 Program execution – system capability to load a program into memory and to run it.
 I/O operations – since user programs cannot execute I/O operations directly, the
operating system must provide some means to perform I/O.
 File-system manipulation – program capability to read, write, create, and delete files.
 Communications – exchange of information between processes executing either on the
same computer or on different systems tied together by a network. Implemented via
shared memory or message passing.
 Error detection – ensure correct computing by detecting errors in the CPU and memory
ardware, in I/O devices, or in user programs.

Additional Operating System Functions

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Additional functions exist not for helping the user, but rather for ensuring efficient system
 25

operations.

1. Resource allocation – allocating resources to multiple users or multiple jobs

running at the same time.
2. Accounting – keep track of and record which users use how much and what
kinds of compute resources for account billing or for accumulating usage
statistics.
3. Protection – ensuring that all access to system resources is controlled.

S.NO RGPV QUESTION YEAR MARKS

Q.1 Explain virtual machine concept. Dec 2012 10
Q.2 Services of Operating System Dec 2009 5
Dec 2011 10
Dec 2013 7

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 26

Unit-01/Lecture-09

System Calls

System calls provide the interface between a running program and the operating system.

1. Generally available as assembly-language instructions.

2. Languages defined to replace assembly language for systems programming allow system
calls to be made directly (e.g., C, C++)

Three general methods are used to pass parameters between a running program and the
operating system.

1. Pass parameters in registers.

2. Store the parameters in a table in memory, and the table address is passed as a parameter
in a register.
3. Push (store) the parameters onto the stack by the program, and pop off the stack by
operating system. Passing of Parameters As A Table

Types of System Calls

1)Process control, 2) File management, 3)Device management, 4)Information maintenance,

5)Communications

Hardware Protection
*Dual-Mode Operation
*I/O Protection
*Memory Protection
*CPU Protection

Dual-Mode Operation
*Sharing system resources requires operating system to ensure that an incorrect program
cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly.
*Provide hardware support to differentiate between at least two modes of operations.
1. User mode – execution done on behalf of a user.
2. Monitor mode (also kernel mode or system mode) – execution done on behalf of operating
system.
*Mode bit added to computer hardware to indicate the current mode:
monitor (0) or user (1).
*When an interrupt or fault occurs hardware switches to monitor mode.
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*Privileged for the notes
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 27

I/O Protection
*All I/O instructions are privileged instructions.
*Must ensure that a user program could never gain control of the computer in monitor mode
(I.e., a user program that, as part of its execution, stores a new address in the interrupt vector).

Memory Protection
*Must provide memory protection at least for the interrupt vector and the interrupt service
routines.
*In order to have memory protection, add two registers that determine the range of legal
addresses a program may access:
*Base register – holds the smallest legal physical memory address.
*Limit register – contains the size of the range
*Memory outside the defined range is protected.

Hardware Address Protection

Hardware Protection
*When executing in monitor mode, the operating system has unrestricted access to both
monitor and user s memory.
*The load instructions for the base and limit registers are privileged instructions.

CPU Protection
*Timer – interrupts computer after specified period to ensure operating system maintains
control.
*Timer is decremented every clock tick.
*When timer reaches the value 0, an interrupt occurs.
*Timer commonly used to implement time sharing.
*Time also used to compute the current time.
*Load-timer is a privileged instruction.
S.NO RGPV QUESTION YEAR MARKS
Q.1 Explain System calls Dec 2009 4
Q.2 Explain system protection in OS Dec 2009 4

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