[antlr-interest] Lexer speed comparison

Terence Parr parrt at cs.usfca.edu
Sat Feb 28 11:31:52 PST 2004


On Feb 28, 2004, at 1:03 AM, Alex Sedow wrote:

> Hello Terence!
>
>> There are many companies that use
>> ANTLR for real work; just check the showcase. :)
>
> I know that, for example many companies use ANTLR java grammar to 
> create its
> commercial projects (RefactorIt, CodeWizard, etc.). But the question 
> is how
> these companies use ANTLR? As part of parser code generation, 
> debug/research
> grammar, or as code generator at start project (without using ANTLR 
> for ocde
> generation later) and than hand-fixing generated code on whole project
> development trying speed-up it?

As I understand it, the minority use it as a "rough draft". The 
majority just incorporate it: IBM, WebLogic, etc...  The thing to keep 
in mind is that there are many apps that don't require blinding speed 
for parsing.  Ease of construction is more important.  That said, 
faster is always better ;)

> Finally. ANTLR is good, well-documented and useful tool. At the 
> current time
> main thing that it need is speed.

Agreed.  Thanks for the support :)

> Two words about ANTLR3 DFA-like lexer. I hope it will be based on 
> switch
> statement (like re2c (for example re2c used in Wave Preprocessor)), 
> because
> table-driven lexers too big (when I try use PCCTS lexer for rc-files it
> create is about 200K exe-file (of course I use table compression)).

Yes, it will be hand-coded like now except it will use small state 
machines to resolve infinite lookahead issues and it will left-factor 
automatically I believe :)

Best regards,
Terence

>
> Alex.
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Professor Comp. Sci., University of San Francisco
Creator, ANTLR Parser Generator, http://www.antlr.org
Cofounder, http://www.jguru.com
Cofounder, http://www.knowspam.net enjoy email again!
Cofounder, http://www.peerscope.com pure link sharing





 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/antlr-interest/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     antlr-interest-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



More information about the antlr-interest mailing list