Lexer prototype working

The first challenge of my thesis project is to understand how to program in MetaModelica language. In order to get some understanding I practiced by making the first Lexer Prototype using some samples of automata's machines from the compilers book.

This approach only gave me confidence on how to write code for MetaModelica, the next part was to use the Flex Lexer generator to generate the C code for one of the exercises of the MetaModelica book. This code help me to create the first Lexer that is able to understand the Flex tables and run a machine that generates the tokens required by the parser.

Now the next challenge is to mimic the same behavior with BISON, which is a parser generator, but much more complex that FLEX.

Modelica Conference

It was good Conference to get some understanding on how big and stable is this project called OpenModelica (http://www.modprod.liu.se/MODPROD2011?l=en)

I got to listen to several expositors including my thesis examiner Peter and my supervisor Martin.

A nice workshop given by one of the creators of the compiler for Modelica Adrian Pop was also interesting to get some hands of this.

It is a good starting point to make this project to start with the coding.

First day at the "office"

From today, I will start coming to the office during week days at LiU PELAB, the duties for today are to finish writting my Planning Report of the thesis for the next semester.

 

Some important points to add are the goal of the thesis and the full schedule for the rest of the semester. This document is very important because it will be like the first requirement document of my thesis and will be an agreement of time with my examiner.

My idea is to finish with the presentation of the thesis at the begining of May, for this the parser for OpenModelica must be completed by the end of march and the written thesis report should be in its first draft by the begining of april.

This is why I will come more often to the office since there is a lot work to do and just a few months ahead.

Starting the reading

This year is almost gone, and I have in mind to start fully productive in January with my Master Thesis at Linköping University for the master program in Computer Science, so I decided to spend the most of this december in reading some interesting references for my master thesis.

First, I have to start catching up with all the theory of Compilers, so I have started reading the first 4 chapters of the book Compilers Principles, Techniques, and Tools

I also have a lot to read from the book Principles of Object Oriented Modeling and simulation with modelica 2.1

One of my supervisors had a video conference with me today to explain me a bit more about the whole project open modelica and to clarify me a bit more about the PARCER that I will build for this project.

The idea is to improve the speed and the error detection in open modelica by replacing the current parcer ANTLR with a integrated parcer built in Modelica language.

Next meeting will be next week or better to say "next year" and I hope to be done with the reading.

My idea is to start the second week of January to design the structure of the parcer and learn the tool I will use to write the compiler parcer.

Master thesis topic selected

Today 7 of Dec 2010 I had a very good meeting with the professor Peter Fritzson, who is working for IDA and is part of PELAB. He propose me to work with him on the thesis "A MetaModelica Parser Generator for Modelica grammar". Starting immediately with reading and preparation for the building of this parser. Hopefully I will finish by the beginning of june. This thesis have an important research component that will increase my skills in research and will open doors for future PhD applications.

Blog about the master thesis

Hi,

I want to start recording all the events for my master thesis at Linköping University in Sweden. Currently I am searching for an interesting topic that suits my background and that improve my application towards the acceptance for a PhD position in Sweden or abroad.