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authorMattias Andrée <maandree@kth.se>2021-04-17 21:58:17 +0200
committerMattias Andrée <maandree@kth.se>2021-04-17 21:58:17 +0200
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parentFix last commit and use it in calc-example (diff)
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Signed-off-by: Mattias Andrée <maandree@kth.se>
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+NAME
+ libparser - Context-free grammar parsing library
+
+DESCRIPTION
+ libparser is a small C library that parses input based on a
+ precompiled context-free grammar.
+
+ To use libparser, a developer should write a syntax for the
+ input that his application shall parse, in a syntax based
+ on Extended Backus–Naur form (EBNF) (somewhat simplified but
+ also somewhat extended). libparser-generate(1) is then used
+ to create a C source file describing the syntax, which shall
+ be compiled into an object file with a C compiler. This file
+ provides a definition of a global variable declared in
+ <libparser.h>: libparser_rule_table. This variable is used
+ when calling libparser_parse_file(3) to parse the application's
+ input.
+
+ libparser is proudly non-self-hosted.
+
+EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
+ Syntax
+ The grammar for libparser-generate(1)'s input can be described
+ in its own grammar:
+
+ (* CHARACTER CLASSES *)
+
+ _space = " " | "\n" | "\t";
+ _alpha = <"a", "z"> | <"A", "Z">;
+ _octal = <"0", "7">;
+ _digit = <"0", "9">;
+ _xdigit = _digit | <"a", "f"> | <"A", "F">;
+ _nonascii = <128, 255>;
+
+
+ (* WHITESPACE/COMMENTS, THE GRAMMAR IS FREE-FORM *)
+
+ _comment_char = _space | <"!", 0x29> | <0x2B, 0xFF>;
+ _comment_tail = [_comment_char], ("*)" | _comment_tail);
+ _comment = "(*", _comment_tail;
+
+ _ = {_space | _comment};
+
+
+ (* IDENTIFIERS *)
+
+ _identifier_head = _alpha | _digit | _nonascii | "_";
+ _identifier_tail = _identifier_head | "-";
+
+ identifier = _identifier_head, {_identifier_tail};
+
+
+ (* STRINGS *)
+
+ _escape_simple = "\\" | "\"" | "'" | "a" | "b" | "f" | "n" | "r" | "v";
+ _escape_hex = ("x" | "X"), _xdigit, _xdigit;
+ _escape_octal = _octal, {_octal}; (* May not exceed 255 in base 10 *)
+ _escape = _escape_simple | _escape_hex | _escape_octal | -;
+ _character = "\\", _escape | <1, "!"> | <"#", 0xFF>;
+
+ string = "\"", _character, {_character}, "\"";
+ character = "\"", _character, "\"";
+
+
+ (* INTEGERS *)
+
+ _decimal = _digit, {_digit};
+ _hexadecimal = "0", ("x" | "X"), _xdigit, {_xdigit};
+
+ integer = _decimal | _hexadecimal; (* May not exceed 255. *)
+
+
+ (* GROUPINGS *)
+
+ _low = character | integer;
+ _high = character | integer;
+
+ concatenation = _, _operand, _, {",", _, _operand, _};
+ alternation = _, concatenation, _, {"|", _, concatenation, _};
+ optional = _, "[", _, _expression, _, "]", _;
+ repeated = _, "{", _, _expression, _, "}", _;
+ group = _, "(", _, _expression, _, ")", _;
+ char-range = _, "<", _, _low, _, ",", _, _high, "_", ">", _;
+ exception = _, "-", _;
+ embedded-rule = _, identifier, _;
+
+ _literal = char-range | exception | string;
+ _group = optional | repeated | group | embedded-rule;
+ _operand = _group | _literal;
+
+ _expression = alternation;
+
+
+ (* RULES *)
+
+ rule = _, identifier, _, "=", _, _expression, ";";
+
+ grammar = {rules, _}, _;
+
+ The file must be encoded in UTF-8, with LF as the line
+ break (CR and FF are illegal just becuase).
+
+ In alternations, the first (leftmost) match is selected. The
+ parser is able to backtrack incase it later turns out that it
+ could not finish that branch. Whenever an exception is
+ reached, the parser will terminate there.
+
+ Repeated symbols may occour any number of times, including
+ zero. The compiler is able to backtrack if it takes too much.
+
+ Concatenation has higher precedence than alternation,
+ groups ("(", ..., ")") have no semantic meaning and are useful
+ only to put a alternation inside a concatenation without
+ creating a new rule for that.
+
+ In character ranges, the _high and _low values must be at
+ least 0 and at most 255, and _high must be greater than _low.
+
+ Rules that begin with an underscore will not show up for
+ the application in the parse result, the rest of the rules
+ will appear in the tree-formatted result.