[antlr-interest] Lexer generated for C# more than 100 times larger than for Java

[Farr, John]

For a grammar I've been working on, the lexer file generated for
"language=CSharp" is over 100 times as large as that generated when
"language=Java". The C# lexer file size 26 MB (26,019,532) whereas the
Java lexer file is 240 KB (240,282). Obviously such a huge file taxes
the C# compiler (amazingly, it does build, but ever so slowly).

The size difference seems to be, at least in part, in the way the "DFA
transition" tables are generated. For Java these tables are generated as
Strings; for C# they're generated as arrays of shorts. There may be
other contributors to the size difference as well.

It seems peculiar that there would be such a huge difference in
generated source code size for 2 targets that are so similar. Is there
any possibility of reducing the size of the generated C# lexer code?

Thanks,
John

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