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Compiler Design (CD) important topics for AKTU – unit-wise

Topics are ranked by how many times AKTU asked them across 12 papers. Finish the "very likely" topics first, then the top topics of each unit.

High-probability Compiler Design topics

  • Finite State Machines and Regular Expressions for Lexical Analysis (Unit 1: Compiler Foundations, Lexical Analysis and Syntactic Specification) – asked 19 times in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
  • Error Detection and Recovery (Unit 4: Symbol Tables, Run-Time Administration and Error Recovery) – asked 15 times in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
  • Data Structures for Symbol Tables (Unit 4: Symbol Tables, Run-Time Administration and Error Recovery) – asked 14 times in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

What to cover inside these topics

  • Finite State Machines (part of Finite State Machines and Regular Expressions for Lexical Analysis)
  • Regular Expressions (part of Finite State Machines and Regular Expressions for Lexical Analysis)
  • Lexical Phase Errors (part of Error Detection and Recovery)
  • Syntactic Phase Errors (part of Error Detection and Recovery)
  • Semantic Errors (part of Error Detection and Recovery)

Most asked Compiler Design topics in each unit

  • Unit 1 (Compiler Foundations, Lexical Analysis and Syntactic Specification): Finite State Machines and Regular Expressions for Lexical Analysis – 19 times; Compiler Phases and Passes – 14 times; Ambiguity – 6 times
  • Unit 2 (Basic Parsing Techniques and Automatic Construction of Efficient Parsers): Shift-Reduce Parsing – 9 times; Top-Down Parsing – 9 times; Predictive Parsers – 7 times
  • Unit 3 (Syntax-Directed Translation and Intermediate Code): Quadruples and Triples – 11 times; Syntax-Directed Translation Schemes – 7 times; Intermediate Code – 7 times
  • Unit 4 (Symbol Tables, Run-Time Administration and Error Recovery): Error Detection and Recovery – 15 times; Data Structures for Symbol Tables – 14 times; Implementation of Simple Stack Allocation Scheme – 9 times
  • Unit 5 (Code Generation and Code Optimization): DAG Representation of Basic Blocks – 11 times; Loop Optimization – 8 times; Machine-Independent Optimizations – 7 times