[antlr-interest] Help with some first steps with Antlr

[christofer.dutz at c-ware.de]

Hi,

I am currently trying to dig into Antlr as I find this tool very helpful. The last Time I used it, I generated something based upon a finished grammar.
This time I wanted to build my own grammar and really start understanding what's happening.

For this I decided to build a parser for some Wiki-Notation-Like text.

Here an example (without the -Start - and - End - row):

------------ Start ---------------
before
More before

And yet even more ...
[Lineup]
[Floor:Main Floor]
Test1
Test2
[Floor:Classics Floor]
Test3
Test4
Test5
Test6
[/Lineup]
after
more After
..

And even more.
------------ End ---------------

If the text contains a "Lineup" block, then this should be parsed. The content is at least one "Floor" followed by a number of Names, a new "Floor" or the closing "Lineup"
I managed my parser to parse the text if I change my grammar and the text I am trying to parse to "[Floor:]" (One Block) but I really need a name in there :(

As soon as I change my Grammar to support the Floor-Name, nothing works anymore.
Could you please help me with this? I'm not looking for someone that fixes it for me without a comment. I would really like to know why my grammar doesn't work.
I'm really stuck and I'm working on this for days now (Ok ... I admit, it's just my spare time after work ... but at least all of that).

Here comes my gammar. If I try to parse the full text, I allways get EarlyExitExceptions while parsing the  :( :

grammar CalendarEventsJava;

/*------------------------------------------------------------------
* PARSER RULES
*------------------------------------------------------------------*/

event    : (
                               (LINE_CONTENT | NEWLINE)*
                               (lineup (LINE_CONTENT | NEWLINE)*)?
               );

lineup   : (LINEUP_OPEN NEWLINE floor+ LINEUP_CLOSE);

floor      : (FLOOR_OPEN LINE_CONTENT FLOOR_CLOSE NEWLINE lineupEntry+);

lineupEntry
                : (LINE_CONTENT? NEWLINE);

artist     : LINE_CONTENT;


/*------------------------------------------------------------------
* LEXER RULES
*------------------------------------------------------------------*/


LINEUP_OPEN
                :              '[Lineup]';
LINEUP_CLOSE
                :              '[/Lineup]';
FLOOR_OPEN
                :              '[Floor:';
FLOOR_CLOSE
                :              ']';

BLANKS               :              ( ' ' | '\t' )+;
NONBREAKING
                :              ~('\r' | '\n');
NEWLINE            :              '\r'? '\n';


// the content of a line consists of at least one non-breaking character.
LINE_CONTENT
                :              NONBREAKING+ ;


I really hope you can help me, as I'm really anxious to really get started with ANTLR, cause I think it really rocks :)

Chris