When you create a parse tree then it contains more details than actually needed. So, it is very difficult to compiler to parse the parse tree. Take the following parse tree as an example:
- In the parse tree, most of the leaf nodes are single child to their parent nodes.
- In the syntax tree, we can eliminate this extra information.
- Syntax tree is a variant of parse tree. In the syntax tree, interior nodes are operators and leaves are operands.
- Syntax tree is usually used when represent a program in a tree structure.
A sentence id + id * id would have the following syntax tree:
Abstract syntax tree can be represented as:
Abstract syntax trees are important data structures in a compiler. It contains the least unnecessary information.
Abstract syntax trees are more compact than a parse tree and can be easily used by a compiler.
