[antlr-interest] Performance of ANTLR-generated lexer/parsers

Terence Parr parrt at cs.usfca.edu
Wed Aug 23 13:51:01 PDT 2006


Hi.  You might try ANTLR v3, which is 2x or 3x due to lexer and other  
junk.  still in beta.

Ter
On Aug 23, 2006, at 12:59 PM, Charles Felstead wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've used ANTLR 2.7.6 to create a C++ parser for a simple XML file.  
> The goal was to compare some metrics with a Xerces-C++ parser (uses  
> DOM).
>
> The first thing we found out (as we expected) is that the ANTLR- 
> generated parser is much MUCH smaller in static footprint.  
> Regarding the dynamic footprint, we know the Xerces-based parser  
> uses more memory...but we don't have all the numbers yet.
>
> Now what really surprised us is the speed of the parsers. We were  
> expecting the ANTLR-generated parser to be much faster than the  
> Xerces-based parser. After all, the ANTLR parser is specific to  
> that one type of file I'm parsing whereas the Xerces is generic.  
> Turns out the Xerces parser, is about 15-25% faster than the ANTLR  
> one??!
>
> So, my question is, can I flip some switches or configure the ANTLR- 
> generated parser to improve the performance??
>
> Thanks,
> Charles.



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