Re: Parser generator tools (Was Re: aflexx/ayacc)

[dan@it.uq.edu.au (Dan Johnston D.B.)]

In <7cjajp$ni91@ftp.kvaerner.com> "Tarjei Tjstheim Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.no> writes:

>Brian Rogoff wrote in message ...
>>Hi,
>> Has anyone created any parser generator tools for Ada (95) besides
>>aflex/ayacc which they'd be willing to release under some sort of
>>"open source" license? In particular, I'd be interested in an LL(k) style
>>parsergen like ANTLR or PRECC or even RDP for Ada-95, since I'm basically
>>a recursively decent fellow. I'm willing to help debug code if necessary.

>There is something called Cocktail that was released a few years ago that may
>interest you. The commercial version may still be available (at that time it
>generated modula-2). If you need something to do you could port cocktail to
>Ada.

I have converted several of the "Cocktail" tools, from the last release of
Cocktail prior to its commercialisation, to generate Ada-95 as well as the
Modula-2 and C, which it generated as originally distributed. 

The following tools have been converted to generate Ada (95):
   rex  - lexical generator
   lalr - parser generator
   cg - attribute grammar system (comprising
              ast - abstract syntax tree system
              ag - attribute evaluator.)
   puma - a pattern matching system for manipulating attributed trees.

Unfortunately, I have not converted "ell" the recursive descent parser
generator, which would be the tool of interest to the initiator of this
thread.
The generators are still written in Modula-2.

I have used these generators (i.e. the Ada generating version) successfully 
for typical "toy" languages in my compilers class for a couple of years.

The sources carry the original copyright of Josef Grosch who developed the 
original tools.  I am not clear what restrictions he may wish to place on 
their usage, and I believe anyone interested in commercial usage of these 
tools should contact him on this issue.  However, the originals from which 
these are derived were freely distributed.  (Josef Grosch was aware of my
work. I sent him a copy a couple of years ago.)

If there is interest, I am prepared to package them and make them available,
but this would probably take a little while as I am pretty busy at the
moment.
          dan.    Dan Johnston, lecturer,
                  Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering,
                  University of Queensland, 4072
                  Australia.
                  email: dan@csee.uq.edu.au