The document discusses lexical analysis and lexical analyzer generators. It covers topics such as:
- Lexical analysis separates the compiler into distinct phases for simpler design and more efficient implementation.
- Lexical analyzers are specified using regular expressions which are translated into nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) and then deterministic finite automata (DFA) for efficient scanning.
- Tools like Lex and Flex can automatically generate a lexical analyzer in C from a specification file defining tokens with regular expressions and actions.