Re: OpenToken: Parsing Ada (subset)?

[Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com>]

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 at 11:29:51 AM UTC-6, Stephen Leake wrote:
> 
> It's _not_ a "parser"; it's a "lexer".
> 
> Define "right". The line between lexer and parser is a design decision,
> not set in stone. 
> 
> > and you have to
> > reparse the matched chunk of text once again. What was the gain? 
> 
> Doing it this way allows reusing a regexp engine, which is easier than
> writing a lexer from scatch.

I just implemented a parser for BB-code (a subset, anyway) -- lexing is essentially finding '[', the ']' after that occurrence, if '/' is the '['+1th character. -- Even though that, in itself, isn't beyond the capabilities of regex I wouldn't recommend using regex: the "simple" usually turns out to be deceptive, esp. WRT regex.