Demystifying The Lexer

The article explains the compiler pipeline from source code to machine code, step by step.

It highlights the lexer and tokenizer as the first stage, turning text into tokens before parsing builds an AST.

Semantic analysis then checks meaning and correctness, followed by LLVM IR generation and optimization.

Finally, LLVM helps produce efficient machine code, with examples from tools like Clang, Rust, and Swift.