4 ms·

Yes, something like ANTLR for Java, or the entire list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_parser_generators#Deterministic_context-free_languages

Yes, something like ANTLR for Java, or the entire list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_parser_generators#Deterministic_context-free_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_parser_generator... I've had good experiences with Menhir (for OCaml) and Tree-sitter, and implemented my own SLR parser generator for C# https://github.com/Lokad/Parsing https://github.com/Lokad/Parsing In the end, what matters is that they should be able to report conflicts and ambiguities.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago
Are you saying PEGs can't conflicts and ambiguities? I didn't know that.
- victorNicollet 3y ago
  Not having ambiguities is actually the main selling point of PEGs. If you have two rules A and B that can both match the input, then a CFG A|B has an ambiguity (two possible derivations), but a PEG A/B explicitly says that the A derivation is chosen. The good part is that unlike a CFG, the PEG doesn't require you to go and fix anything (the / operator already did that for you). This makes the initial implementation of the grammar easier. On the other hand, if you already have code in the wild that uses the old grammar G1, and in order to add new features, you introduce a new grammar G2 that is a superset of G1. You need to know if any of the existing code has a derivation in G2 that is different from its derivation in G1 (as that would cause backwards incompatibility). With a PEG, there's no way to tell, so you have to check this by hand (and mistakes are easy). With a CFG, you know that backwards incompatibility happens if and only if G2 has conflicts, and those conflicts are precisely the cases that are not backwards compatible.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    Excellent answer, thanks
- ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
  A PEG is not actually a generative grammar but a domain-specific language for specifying top-down parsers. So they are free of conflicts and ambiguities by definition of their semantics. PEG is actually just syntactic sugar on top of (G)TDPL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_parsing_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_parsing_language

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

Are you saying PEGs can't conflicts and ambiguities? I didn't know that.

victorNicollet 3y ago
Not having ambiguities is actually the main selling point of PEGs. If you have two rules A and B that can both match the input, then a CFG A|B has an ambiguity (two possible derivations), but a PEG A/B explicitly says that the A derivation is chosen. The good part is that unlike a CFG, the PEG doesn't require you to go and fix anything (the / operator already did that for you). This makes the initial implementation of the grammar easier. On the other hand, if you already have code in the wild that uses the old grammar G1, and in order to add new features, you introduce a new grammar G2 that is a superset of G1. You need to know if any of the existing code has a derivation in G2 that is different from its derivation in G1 (as that would cause backwards incompatibility). With a PEG, there's no way to tell, so you have to check this by hand (and mistakes are easy). With a CFG, you know that backwards incompatibility happens if and only if G2 has conflicts, and those conflicts are precisely the cases that are not backwards compatible.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  Excellent answer, thanks
ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
A PEG is not actually a generative grammar but a domain-specific language for specifying top-down parsers. So they are free of conflicts and ambiguities by definition of their semantics. PEG is actually just syntactic sugar on top of (G)TDPL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_parsing_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_parsing_language