Semantic analysis (compilers)

In computer science, semantic analysis is a pass that identifies the meaning of programming language and determine how to execute it.

It follows parsing and precedes code generation. This process faithfully reflects the complexitiy of a programming language.

The job of the semantic analyzer is to understand the meaning of programming language and make decision about how to execute it, that is, to indentify the role of an expression and make the order of evaluation. In other words, semantic analysis is define the individual charactertic of a programming language. Semantic analyzers usually maintains symbolic tables to know what the symbol is when it encounters a symbol.

The semantic analyzer usualy employs a set of tiny routines called semantic action routines.

Task in this pass include:

object binding
static type-checking
some optimization (not always)