RE: [Axiom-developer] Re: newrule from metalex.lisp

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Weiss, Juergen wrote:

| In principle metalex.lisp is used to generate fnewmeta.lisp
| from fnewmeta.meta (and metameta.lisp from metameta.meta). 
| metameta.meta is a parser generator written in itself. The
| grammar of the old parser (for the SPAD compiler) is
| defined in the file fnewmeta.meta. 
| 
| Seems that someone did not like this setup and removed
| some files. The remaining parts do not make much sense
| anymore. So one solution is to eliminate the remnants,
| the other to get the files from the archives (tar file)
| and add some rules in the Makefiles.


Hi Juergen,  thanks for the background.

You're quite right the current situation is confusing.  The current
interpreter uses the new parser (cparse.boot), while the compiler
uses the old parser whose grammar is generated as you describe above.
Except that the grammar is not actually generated anymore: instead the 
corresponding Lisp is cached.  I believe it would make sense that
both the interpreter and the compiler uses the same parser, to reduce
confusion in syntax, etc.  From that perspective, I would think that the long
term would be to remove the remanants.

Would you object to moving to the new parser (cparse.boot)?

-- Gaby