The analysis phase of a compiler breaks up a source program into constituent pieces and produces an internal representation for it, called intermediate code. The synthesis phase translates the intermediate code into the target program.
Analysis is organized around the "syntax" of the language to be compiled. The syntax of a programming language describes the proper form of its programs, while the semantics of the language defines what its programs mean; that is, what each program does when it executes. For specifying syntax, we present a widely used notation, called context-free grammars or BNF (for Backus-Naur Form)
