[antlr-interest] Suggestion needed

[CK Ng]

Hi,

I'm new in the parser technology, I would like to get some suggestions or 
opinions for my current project.

I've a byte stream (from a file or a live stream) to be parsed into useful 
data, preferably into java object. From what I've gathered from reading 
Antlr, I could write a grammar to define the data layout. However, writing a 
EBNF grammar is a non-trivial task for normal user. Instead of defining the 
data specification using EBNF, I would like to use more human friendly 
interface by defining my own definition language, which can be written and 
understand more easily by the average user.

I could do

[InputStream]-->[data grammar]-->[output - obj]

But, I'd like to:

[my definition file]-->[my definition grammar]-->[parser]-->AST

[InputStream]-->[ (based on AST above) ???]-->[output - obj]

where I'm missing a connection between the two.

My question is how do I make use of my parsed definition to parse the input 
stream?
All examples and questions I found are geared toward 1st scenario, yet to 
find any that match my case.


Thanks.

Regards,
CK Ng