Symbol Table Access

During the translation of many programming languages it is necessary to associate each occurrence of an identifier with its collected attributes. This is accomplished by means of a symbol table which holds relevant information about all active identifiers encountered in the source text. Information required for translation, and held in the symbol table, may include the name, type, location, diagnostic information, scope nesting, etc. An entry is made into the symbol table when a new identifier is declared. When an identifier is otherwise used the symbol table is interrogated for the information on which to base translation decisions.