--- title: "What is lexical analysis and syntax analysis in a compiler?" description: "What is lexical analysis and syntax analysis in a compiler?" author: "Utpal Vishwas" published: 2023-04-07 updated: 2023-04-08 canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/157727/what-is-lexical-analysis-and-syntax-analysis-in-a-compiler category: "compiler design" tags: ["computer hardware", "computer system"] reading_time: 1 minute --- # What is lexical analysis and syntax analysis in a compiler? What is lexical [analysis](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/323533/prospective-analysis) and syntax analysis in a [compiler](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/27/just-in-time-compiler)? ## Replies ### Reply by Krishnapriya Rajeev *Lexical analysis* and *syntax analysis* are two phases of the compilation process that help translate a high-level programming language into machine code that a computer can understand. **Lexical analysis**, also known as scanning, is the first phase of the compilation process. It reads the source code character by character and groups them into meaningful sequences called *lexemes.* It then produces tokens, which are pairs of a token name and an attribute value. The tokens are passed on to the next phase, syntax analysis. Tokens are of the form for each lexeme. **Syntax analysis**, also known as parsing, is the second phase of the compilation process. It takes the tokens produced by the lexical analyzer and arranges them into a tree-like structure called a syntax tree or parse tree. The syntax tree creates a tree-like representation that shows the grammatical structure of the token stream. The syntax analyzer reports any syntax errors to the programmer if it finds any. --- Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/157727/what-is-lexical-analysis-and-syntax-analysis-in-a-compiler Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.