What is Three Address Code (3AC) ?
Today I would like to make a short note about Three Address Code.
Q: What is it?
A: It is a type of intermediate code.
Q: What is its advantages?
A: It is highly comprehensible, facilitates the generation of intermediate representations, and readily converts to machine code.
Q: What is its standard form?
A: At most three addresses(operants) and one operator, the order of operands depends on the specific compiler. The general representation is a = b op c
Q: Can you present a simple example?
A: For example, a = b * (c - d) could be represented as
_t1 = c - d;
_t2 = b * _t1;
a = _t2;
I hope these short answers help you to understand 3AC. To verify if you have understood it 100% percent, you could try to transfer the following expressions into 3AC(answers are in the next post).
for(i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
{
a[i] = x * x;
}
if (a < b + c)
a = a - c;
c = b * c;