[antlr-interest] antlr v4 wish list

[Martin d'Anjou]

Hello,

My suggestions, for what it's worth:

1) In the Runtime section:
* Tokens and Trees should both know their start/stop line, start/stop 
char position to make IDEs easier.

Not only IDEs, but for also for debugging on the command line in a 
terminal. The file name is also needed.

2) Lexer debug enhancement:
Option on the lexer constructor to have the lexer print some debug info: 
token type by name, token value, filename, line and char position, 
without having to replace antlr's built-in classes.

3) General:
I have spent many hours on a ridiculous little problem: the grammar 
declaration statement! So I suggest enforcing the grammar type in the 
grammar declaration:
parser grammar MyGrammar;
lexer grammar MyGrammar;
mixed grammar MyGrammar;  // lexer and parser grammar
tree grammar MyGrammar;

4) Gigantic source files, as described here:
http://v2kparse.blogspot.com/2008/06/first-pass-uploaded-to-sourceforce.html
Maybe this has been solved already?

Regards,
Martin d'Anjou