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* Announcement: OpenToken 1.1 released
@ 1999-05-20  0:00 Ted Dennison
  1999-05-20  0:00 ` David Botton
  1999-05-20  0:00 ` Ted Dennison
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Ted Dennison @ 1999-05-20  0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)


Version 1.1 of the OpenToken package has been released. It is available
at http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/OpenToken/OpenToken.html . It is
also available from links on my homepage and AdaPower.

The new features are:

   * A default text feeder function that can be redirected to whatever
     file you want via Text_IO.
   * A user's guide with a tutorial.
   * An example program implementing the syntax in the Aho/Sethi/Ullman
     Compilers book's (aka: "The Dragon Book") example 3.6.

Relevant portions of the Readme file are attached below:
-----------------------------------------
OpenToken Package Readme

                                   Version 1.1


The OpenToken package is a facility for performing token analysis within
the Ada language. It is designed to provide
all the functionality of a traditional lexical analyzer generator, such
as lex. But due to the magic of inheritance and
runtime polymorphism it is implemented entirely in Ada as withed-in
code. No precompilation step is required, and
no messy tool-generated source code is created.

Additionally, the technique of using classes of recognizers promises to
make most token specifications as simple as
making an easy to read procedure call. The most error prone part of
generating analyzers, the token pattern
matching, has been taken from the typical user's hands and placed into
reusable classes. Over time I hope to see the
addition of enough reusable recognizer classes that very few users will
ever need to write a custom one.

Ada's type safety features should also make misbehaving analyzers easier
to debug. All this will hopefully add up to
token analyzers that are much simpler and faster to create, easier to
get working properly, and easier to understand.

History

Version 1.1

The main code change to this version is a default text feeder function
that has been added to the analyzer. It reads its
input from Ada.Text_IO.Current_Input, so you can change the file to
whatever you want fairly easily. The capability
to create and use your own feeder function still exists, but it should
not be nessecary in most cases. If you already
have code that does this, it should still compile and work properly.

The other addition is the first version of the OpenToken user's guide.
All it contains right now is a user manual
walking through the steps needed to make a simple token analyzer.
Feedback and/or ideas on this are welcome.

Version 1.0

This is the very first publicly released version. This package is based
on work I did while working on the JPATS
trainer for FlightSafety International. The germ of this idea came while
I was trying to port a fairly ambitious, but
fatally buggy Ada 83 token recognition package written for a previous
simulator. But once I was done, I was rather
suprised at the flexibility of the final product. Seeing the possible
benefit to the community, and to the company
through user-submitted enhancement and debugging, I suggested that this
code be released as Open Source. They
were open-minded enough to agree. Bravo!


Future

I do plan on actively maintaining this package. How actively depends on
user submissions, my own schedule, and
what pans out for my studies. I am proposing to do my master's thesis on
this, but they seem to think it "isn't enough",
even with the proposed parsing facility added. I'll admit developing a
parser generator in inlined code using OO
technology to do what used to have to be done with a precompiler doesn't
seem to be an amazingly clever idea in
hindsight, but as near as I can tell this facility is unique. It
certainly should be enough work. We will see what
happens.

Things I would like to add soon:

     A string literal recognizer

Things on my plate for later:

     Look into changing the feeder function into a stream reference. I
was unfamiliar with streams when I wrote this
     package. It looks like they would make several things much easier
to deal with, but the devil's always in the
     details...
     More recognizers
     The Biggie: A parsing facility in the same vein as this token
analysis facility!

Things you can help with:

     More recognizers - The more of these there are, the more useful
this facility is. If you make 'em, please send
     'em in!
     Well isolated bug reports (or even fixes). Version 1.0 has been
fairly thoroughly wrung out already, but that
     doesn't mean you won't find any problems.

Again, I hope you find this package useful for your needs.
--------------------
--
T.E.D.

Home - mailto:dennison@telepath.net  Work - mailto:dennison@ssd.fsi.com
WWW  - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html  ICQ  - 10545591






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Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
1999-05-20  0:00 Announcement: OpenToken 1.1 released Ted Dennison
1999-05-20  0:00 ` David Botton
1999-05-20  0:00   ` Ted Dennison
1999-05-20  0:00 ` Ted Dennison
1999-05-20  0:00   ` David Botton
1999-05-22  0:00     ` Simon Wright
1999-05-23  0:00       ` James S. Rogers
1999-05-24  0:00         ` dennison
1999-05-24  0:00           ` Robert Dewar
1999-05-25  0:00           ` Thomas Quinot
1999-05-25  0:00           ` Stephen Leake

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