What is Abstract syntax tree?

A tree representing program structure with operations and statements as nodes. Meaningless details such as parentheses and separators are omitted, and operator precedence is expressed by the tree's shape.

Field: Compilers

Questions that mention Abstract syntax tree (2)

  1. Which describes an abstract syntax tree (AST)?
  2. What does the abstract syntax tree for the expression 2 + 3 * 4 look like?

Related terms

Syntax analysis (parsing) Basic block Common subexpression elimination Constant folding Control-flow graph Function inlining Instruction scheduling Intermediate representation JIT compilation Lexical analysis

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