Re: [Caml-list] [ANNOUNCE] Alpha release of Menhir, an LR(1) parser generator for ocaml

[Nathaniel Gray <n8gray@gmail.com>]

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This is pretty nice!  Every time I use ocamlyacc I think "somebody should
write something better."  Now it looks like somebody has!  I can't tell you
how many times I've wanted parameterized rules and simple "library" rules
for parsing delimiter-separated lists and such...

Cheers,
-n8

On 12/12/05, Francois Pottier <Francois.Pottier@inria.fr> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Caml users,
>
> We are proud to announce the first release of Menhir. Menhir compiles
> LR(1)
> grammar specifications to OCaml code.
>
> Menhir is 90% compatible with ocamlyacc. That is, existing ocamlyacc
> grammar
> specifications are accepted and compiled by Menhir; the resulting parsers
> run
> and produce correct parse trees, except they produce incorrect position
> information, because none of the functionality of module Parsing is
> supported. Porting a grammar specification from ocamlyacc to Menhir
> requires
> replacing all calls to the Parsing module with new keywords.
>
> Why switch from ocamlyacc to Menhir? In short,
>
> * Menhir offers parameterized nonterminal symbols as well as a library of
>    standard definitions, including options, sequences, and lists. It also
>    offers limited support for EBNF syntax.
>
> * ocamlyacc accepts LALR(1) grammars; Menhir accepts LR(1) grammars, thus
>    avoiding certain artificial conflicts.
>
> * Menhir explains conflicts in terms of the grammar, not (only) in terms
> of
>    the automaton.
>
> * Menhir allows grammar specifications to be split over multiple files. It
>    also allows several grammars to share a single set of tokens.
>
> * Menhir produces reentrant parsers.
>
> * Menhir is able to produce parsers that are parameterized by Ocaml
> modules.
>
> * ocamlyacc requires semantic values to be referred to via keywords: $1,
> $2,
>    and so on. Menhir allows semantic values to be explicitly named.
>
> * Menhir's error and warning messages are usually more numerous and better
>    than ocamlyacc's.
>
> A more detailed comparison between ocamlyacc and Menhir appears in
> Menhir's
> documentation.
>
> This is an ALPHA-quality release, so there certainly remain a lot of bugs
> to iron out. Nevertheless, we encourage intrepid testers to have a look
> and send suggestions and bug reports our way. Thanks for your attention!
>
> Menhir requires ocaml 3.09. The source distribution and the documentation
> can
> be found at
>
>   http://pauillac.inria.fr/~fpottier/menhir/menhir-20051212.tar.gz
>   http://pauillac.inria.fr/~fpottier/menhir/manual.pdf
>
> --
> François Pottier and Yann Régis-Gianas
> {Francois.Pottier,Yann.Regis-Gianas}@inria.fr
> http://pauillac.inria.fr/~fpottier/
> http://pauillac.inria.fr/~regisgia/
>
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>



--
>>>-- Nathaniel Gray -- Caltech Computer Science ------>
>>>-- Mojave Project -- http://mojave.cs.caltech.edu -->

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