[antlr-interest] ANTLR backend for ruby?

[Ric Klaren]

Hi,

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 07:48:26AM -0300, Rodrigo B. de Oliveira wrote:
> Let's say I wanted to write an ANTLR backend for ruby (parser generation
> and associate runtime support), where would I start? I mean, are there any
> docs/examples about it? Is it feasible right now or should I wait for the
> next release?

There's no docs about how to implement new backends. Although if you have a
good understanding of the code ANTLR generates then you can get quite a
long way.

Important files:

antlr/*CodeGenerator.java   -> actual codegenerator
antlr/actions/*/action.g    -> does the translations of the $setXXX and
                               #( [..], .. , .. ) in the actions to target
                               code.
antlr/DefineGrammarSymbols.java  -> part of option handling
antlr/*BlockFinishingInfo.java  -> don't recall exact function offhand
antlr/*CharFormatter.java       -> does various formatting of values to
                                   target language

About all the rest you don't have to touch except for the support library.

I don't know ruby but it's probably pretty doable to write a new backend.
To start with I'd grab the generated code for a few trivial parsers and try
to translate it manually into ruby and then try to adapt the one of the
codegenerators to it. Make sure to also include a grammar including
'guessing mode' eg. one with a syntactic predicate.

Next release might still be a ways off.

HTH,

Ric
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    ---- Ric Klaren ----- j.klaren at utwente.nl ----- +31 53 4893722  ----
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