[antlr-interest] using ANTLR for IDL compiling/code generation

[Terence Parr]

Hi Tim, the IDL grammar is from version 2 of antlr, I'm afraid. you  
will have to manually convert.
Ter
On Jun 23, 2009, at 2:11 PM, Tim Black wrote:

> I am investigating customizable IDL compilers / code-generation  
> tools for an embedded C++ application. What I need is very close to  
> the many available CORBA IDL compilers. These typically have  
> customizable back-ends which allow you to do whatever you want with  
> the generated Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), but you are constrained to  
> using their front-ends (typically implemented with lex/flex/yacc/ 
> bison) which are hard-coded to work with CORBA IDL specification.  
> (The front-end can be modified, but that's too big a project.) This  
> means that I am somewhat limited in terms of what I can represent in  
> the IDL files. (Using CORBA IDL, I can extend the IDL by adding new  
> constructs into the comments, which can be preserved and passed to  
> the back-end.)
>
> ANTLR seems capable of helping me create a CORBA-like, but custom,  
> IDL compiler/code generator. My understanding is that I would define  
> the grammar for my IDL (using ANTLRWorks), and from this ANTLR  
> generates an implementation for lexing and parsing an IDL file. I  
> just did this for the SimpleCalc.g tutorial and generated the lexer/ 
> parser code in Python, my preferred language. It is not obvious to  
> me how to use the resulting SimpleCalcLexer and SimpleCalcParser  
> classes to create my code generation application. Is there an  
> example of this somewhere?
>
> Also, I found the ANTLR grammars for CORBA IDL (http://www.antlr.org/grammar/1072891676218/idl.g 
>  and http://www.antlr.org/grammar/1203688376660/Idl.g) and tried  
> running ANTLR on them and got these errors:
>
> Running ANTLR on grammar from http://www.antlr.org/grammar/1072891676218/idl.g 
> :
>
> ~tblack\My Documents\Serialization\antlr-3.1.3\grammars 
> \CORBA_IDL_AST>java org.antlr.Tool idl_ast.g
> error(10):  internal error:  : java.lang.Error: Error parsing  
> idl_ast.g: 'header' not expected 'grammar'
> org.antlr.tool.GrammarSpelunker.match(GrammarSpelunker.java:74)
> org.antlr.tool.GrammarSpelunker.grammarHeader(GrammarSpelunker.java: 
> 112)
> org.antlr.tool.GrammarSpelunker.parse(GrammarSpelunker.java:84)
> org.antlr.Tool.sortGrammarFiles(Tool.java:525)
> org.antlr.Tool.process(Tool.java:383)
> org.antlr.Tool.main(Tool.java:91)
> error(100): idl_ast.g:1:1: syntax error: antlr: idl_ast.g:1:1:  
> unexpected token: header
> error(100):  syntax error: invalid char literal: '\3'
> error(100):  syntax error: invalid char literal: '\377'
> warning(149): idl_ast.g:0:0: rewrite syntax or operator with no  
> output option; setting output=AST
> error(150):  grammar file idl_ast.g has no rules
> error(100): idl_ast.g:0:0: syntax error: assign.types: <AST>:0:0:  
> unexpected end of subtree
> error(100): idl_ast.g:0:0: syntax error: define: <AST>:0:0:  
> unexpected end of subtree
>
> Running ANTLR on grammar from http://www.antlr.org/grammar/1203688376660/Idl.g 
> :
>
> ~tblack\My Documents\Serialization\antlr-3.1.3\grammars 
> \CORBA_IDL>java org.antlr.Tool Idl.g
> warning(200): Idl.g:717:2: Decision can match input such as  
> "'0'..'9'{'E', 'e'}{'+', '-'}'0'..'9'{'D', 'F', 'd', 'f'}" using  
> multiple alternatives: 3, 4
> As a result, alternative(s) 4 were disabled for that input
> error(208): Idl.g:723:1: The following token definitions can never  
> be matched because prior tokens match the same input: FIXED_PT_LITERAL
>
> This one still generated the Lexer/Parser source files, despite the  
> error (is this correct?)
>
> Terrence's C grammar (http://www.antlr.org/grammar/1153358328744/ 
> C.g) compiled fine.
>
> Any ideas what's wrong with these grammars? Can someone point me in  
> the right direction?
>
> Thanks!
>
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