I am learning on my own about writing an interpreter for a programming language, and I have read about Abstract Syntax Trees. I have an idea of what they are, but I do not see their use.
Why are ASTs useful?
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I am learning on my own about writing an interpreter for a programming language, and I have read about Abstract Syntax Trees. I have an idea of what they are, but I do not see their use.
Why are ASTs useful?
They represent the logic/syntax of the code, which is naturally a tree rather than a list of lines, without getting bogged down in concrete syntax issues such as where you place your asterisk.
The logic can then be manipulated in a manner more consistent and convenient from the backend’s POV, which can be (and is, for everything but Lisps 😉 very different from how we write the concrete syntax.