[antlr-interest] antlr 3 stuff

matthew ford Matthew.Ford at forward.com.au
Mon Apr 12 02:06:19 PDT 2004


Could you give some small concrete example of what you are expecting to be
able to do?

matthew
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Monty Zukowski" <monty at codetransform.com>
To: <antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "Monty Zukowski" <monty at codetransform.com>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: [antlr-interest] antlr 3 stuff


> Actually there are two completely separate reasons.  On the antlr side
> it could help with code generation or with specialized uses of antlr
> that couldn't be handled by code generation.  It's hard to explain what
> those might be and I haven't come up with an example, but it's a
> solution that I will consider if we run into something nasty that can't
> easily be handled by a specialized code generator.  This is, however, a
> big deal for antlr and I'm not sure I'll be able to convince Terence
> and Loring that it is the appropriate thing to do.  It may be an
> experimental branch I'll have to make myself.
>
> But the main thing I would like to see is this support for antlr
> grammars.  For instance, people could download my C grammar and extend
> it syntactically with safe pointers or whatever domain specific
> extensions they would like to add.  And because they are extending the
> grammar, antlr will enforce certain rules differently so the programmer
> doesn't make a huge blunder because they are unfamiliar with
> disambiguation.
>
> However we do it I think the important idea is that building a grammar
> and extending a grammar are two different modes of development which
> antlr could handle in different ways to make each mode of development
> easier.  And if we go with the metamorphic syntactical macro idea then
> we would be a natural choice for developers making domain specific
> languages.
>
> Monty
>
> On Apr 11, 2004, at 4:22 PM, matthew ford wrote:
>
> > Hi Monty,
> > I started reading this paper today.  I got lost in the syntax.
> > It looks powerful, perhaps too powerful for the average user (me).
> >
> > I could think of two uses for this in Antlr 3
> > i) use this type of macro expansions to support multiple output
> > languages.
> > It should make it easier for the power user to add support for another
> > language
> > by replacing the macro files without touching the Antlr parser
> > ii) use the pretty printer idea to improve the error reporting in
> > Antlr and
> > to tie the final code to the input grammar.
> >
> > Is this what you had in mind.
> > all the best
> > matthew
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <mzukowski at yci.com>
> > To: <antlr-interest at yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 9:58 AM
> > Subject: [antlr-interest] antlr 3 stuff
> >
> >
> >> I'd like to explore the 'language extension' space for antlr 3.  To me
> >> developing a grammar and extending a grammar are very distinct phases
> >> of
> >> antlr coding.  Plenty of people download grammars and just want to
> >> tweak
> >> them with actions or a small bit of new syntax.  In "Growing Languages
> > with
> >> Metamorphic Syntax Macros" by Claus Brabrand and Michael I.
> >> Schwartzbach
> > at
> >> http://www.brics.dk/bigwig/publications/#macro they present a system
> >> that
> >> makes it safe for people to extend languages by not letting them do
> >> stupid
> >> things that have huge side effects.  When the time comes I'll re-read
> >> the
> >> paper again and try and convince Ter & Loring.
> >>
> >> Monty
> >> www.codetransform.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Yahoo! Groups Links
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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