[antlr-interest] Build Question

mzukowski at bco.com mzukowski at bco.com
Tue Mar 12 08:56:24 PST 2002 

Yes, I will write up a simple example in the next few days, as I'm swamped
right now.  In the meantime I can send you the noweb file I used for the gcc
stuff if you like.

Monty

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tiller, Michael (M.M.) [mailto:mtiller at ford.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 7:13 AM
> To: 'antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com'
> Subject: RE: [antlr-interest] Build Question
> 
> 
> Could you post an example of how this is done?
> 
> --
> Mike
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mzukowski at bco.com [mailto:mzukowski at bco.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 10:08 AM
> > To: antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: RE: [antlr-interest] Build Question
> > 
> > 
> > One way to accomplish what you wish would be to do some 
> > preprocessing.  I'm
> > particularly fond of the "noweb" literate programming tool, 
> > which I used to
> > build the GCC grammar.  It allowed me to reuse grammar 
> > fragments and then
> > add my own actions.  More importantly for me it allowed me to 
> > keep related
> > rules in the same area of the noweb file, so my declaration 
> > rules for the
> > ANSI C Parser, GCC Parser, GCC tree walker, GCC tree 
> emitter were all
> > together, and while debugging when I modified one rule I was 
> > right there to
> > make sure the other rules were changed in sync.
> > 
> > Antlr subclassing is most useful when there are no actions to 
> > subclass.  So
> > I use it for a tree grammar that I subclass with actions for 
> > specific passes
> > of a translator.  Subclassing a grammar with actions would be almost
> > useless.  In fact I would reorganize my grammars as a 
> > literate program so I
> > could reuse parts as I wish, it ends up being more flexible 
> > than antlr's
> > subclassing.
> > 
> > Monty
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Tiller, Michael (M.M.) [mailto:mtiller at ford.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 6:48 AM
> > > To: 'antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com'
> > > Subject: RE: [antlr-interest] Build Question
> > > 
> > > 
> > > A few followup comments...
> > > 
> > > I was hoping to support both Java and C++ for future 
> > > development.  It seems like this is impractical for the 
> > > following reasons:
> > > 
> > > 1) Trying to write a language independent way comment rule 
> > > that "eats" comments doesn't seem possible.
> > > 2) Perhaps for misguided reasons, I'd like to be able to add 
> > > "child" nodes to my AST during tree construction.  It isn't 
> > > clear to me how that can be done in a language neutral way.  
> > > It would be nice if ANTLR's tree construction shorthand were 
> > > extended to allow this.
> > > 3) The target language has to be specified in the grammar 
> > > (couldn't this be a command line option?)
> > > 4) The difficulties with trying to do grammar inheritance 
> > (see below).
> > > 
> > > This isn't really criticism (ANTLR is a great tool).  
> > > Consider it ideas for future releases.  Because of these 
> > > problems, I think I'm going to have to abandon my hope of a 
> > > language neutral grammar and just start plugging in my C++ code.
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Mike
> > > 
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Ric Klaren [mailto:klaren at cs.utwente.nl]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 3:51 AM
> > > > To: antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com
> > > > Subject: Re: [antlr-interest] Build Question
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 01:03:27PM -0500, Tiller, Michael 
> > > > (M.M.) wrote:
> > > > > So far so good I imagine (although I haven't gotten far 
> > > > enough to figure
> > > > > out if this is a good idea yet).  The problem I'm running 
> > > > into is that I
> > > > > imagine these grammars may be shared among several distinct 
> > > > applications.
> > > > > For that reason, I keep the ".g" files away from everything 
> > > > else.  So when
> > > > > I run ANTLR, the Makefile rule looks like this:
> > > > >  
> > > > >  $(ANTLR) -glib $(ROOTDIR)/base.g -o $(GENDIR) 
> > > > $(ROOTDIR)/base_java.g
> > > > >  
> > > > > where GENDIR is the location for the generated code and 
> > > > ROOTDIR is where I
> > > > > keep the .g files.  This way, I can generate the set of 
> > > > source files for
> > > > > each project based on the grammars.
> > > > >  
> > > > > The problem is that when you use grammar inheritance, ANTLR 
> > > > expands the
> > > > > complete grammar into "expandedbase_java.g".  Except that 
> > > > it actually names
> > > > > it "expanded$(ROOTDIR)/base_java.g" (where ROOTDIR is 
> > > > actually expanded).
> > > > > In other words, it assumes that the ".g" is in the current 
> > > > directory.
> > > > >  
> > > > > Any suggestions about how to avoid this problem?  I'm 
> > > > surprised that I
> > > > > can't explicitly specify the name of the expanded grammar.  
> > > > That would have
> > > > > been a nice option.
> > > > 
> > > > Been there done that. Doesn't work. It needs some serious 
> > > > fixing in antlr
> > > > to make this behave well. I already looked at it when I ran 
> > > > into it, it's
> > > > not completely easy to fix in antlr. I currently copy .g 
> > > > files around with
> > > > Make rules to get the right behaviour.
> > > > 
> > > > I personally must say that I found antlr's grammar 
> > > inheritance pretty
> > > > useless (gives to little control over what you want to 
> > > > override, in the end
> > > > you end up copying action code in a complicated way so I 
> > > > figured I'd better
> > > > copy stuff around in an easy way). YMMV though I suspect some 
> > > > ppl on the
> > > > list may have gotten nice results with it.
> > > > 
> > > > Ric
> > > > --
> > > > -----+++++****************************************************
> > > > *+++++++++-------
> > > >     ---- Ric Klaren ----- klaren at cs.utwente.nl ----- +31 53 
> > > > 4893722  ----
> > > > -----+++++****************************************************
> > > > *+++++++++-------
> > > >  Time what is time - I wish I knew how to tell You why - It 
> > > > hurts to know -
> > > >           Aren't we machines - Time what is time - 
> Unlock the door
> > > >                - And see the truth - Then time is time again
> > > >                 From: 'Time what is Time' by Blind Guardian
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > >  
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