Subj : Re: Compiler and an interpreter
To   : comp.programming
From : Gerry Quinn
Date : Sat Jul 30 2005 02:30 pm

In article <1122649871.905133.250950@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, 
gswork@mailcity.com says...
> 
> anjali wrote:
> > Suppose in a source-code file, the 4th line contains the first syntax
> > error.Can anybody please tell me how the compiler and interpreter will
> > behave when the given file will be the input to them?
> >
> > My guess is that the compiler will go through the entire file and will
> > report all the syntax errors in the file while the interpreter will
> > stop its execution exactly after the 4th line and will say that there
> > is a syntax error in the 4th line.
> 
> Frequently yes, but in fact either can be made to do either, depending
> on how they have been designed!

Typically an interpreter will stop on the first error.  Compilers in my 
experience usually carry on until a fixed number of errors (e.g. 100) 
have been found, and then stop.

Usually in C++, if there are eight errors found, there really are about 
eight.  When there are 100 errors, you left out a curly bracket 
somewhere above the first one, or something like that.

- Gerry Quinn

.