dparsergen 0.1.2

DParserGen

Parser generator for the D programming language.

Features

• Lexer and parser can be generated from the same grammar file.
• The user can provide a template for creating the parse trees.
• Grammar files can import other grammars.
• Parametrized symbols (inspired by Pegged).
• Documentation can be generated from grammar files using documentation comments.
• Automatic grammar rewriting for optimizations and avoiding conflicts.
• Lexer
• Uses the longest token by default, but tokens can also be configured to stop at the minimial match.
• The lexer allows limited recursive grammar rules, which can be used for e.g. nested block comments.
• LALR parser
• Recursive Ascent Parser.
• Pulls tokens from the lexer.
• Backtracking for annotated nonterminals.
• GLR parser
• Ambiguities can be represented as special nodes in the parse tree.
• Tokens can be pushed into the parser.

Limitations

• Lexer and parser are not yet very optimized.
• The generated parser can be big for big grammars, like D and C++, requiring much memory when compiling.
• Error messages can still be improved.

Examples

Different examples are in subfolders of examples/. Every example also has a file README.md with more details.

An example grammar for parsing JSON files is in folder examples/json/. The parse tree for a JSON file can be printed by an example application.

Folder examples/calc/ contains a grammar for simple arithmetic expressions. The application reads expressions from stdin and directly calculates the answer without building a parse tree.

A grammar for the D programming language is in examples/d/. The parser uses LALR with different extensions, like backtracking. A parse tree can be printed by the example application. It can also test the grammar using the test suite of DMD.

Folder examples/cpp/ contains grammars for C++ and the preprocessor. The parser for C++ uses GLR, while the grammar for the preprocessor can use LALR. The example application shows the parse tree for a C++ file, which needs to be already preprocessed.

An example for parsing Python is is folder examples/python/. It uses a wrapper around the generated lexer, which keeps track of the indentation level.

The folder tests/grammars/ also contains example grammars, but some of them test corner cases and should not be used as examples for real grammars.

Documentation

The parser and lexer generator is documented in docs/generator.md. Documentation of the syntax for grammar files is in docs/syntax.md, which was generated from the grammar in grammarebnf.ebnf. An overview of the API is in docs/api.md.

License

Boost Software License, Version 1.0. See file LICENSE10.txt.