Re: Interactive parsing with Bison

[Frans Englich]

On Friday 23 June 2006 14:20, Satya wrote:
> hi,
> I was looking at some of the visual parser generator tools today - I
> discovered Anagram (http://www.parsifalsoft.com), and Visual Parse ++
> (http://sand-stone.com) . These tools can generate LALR parsers like
> Bison but also come with a nice visual interface to single step
> through parses. You compose and debug grammars through an IDE.
> Unfortunately both programs are non-free.
>
> I am considering the possibility of building a free IDE for Bison with
> at least the following abilities :

This sounds very interesting and useful.

> 1. Single step through a test input file and obtain a trace (like the
> one produced by a %debug directive. But now it will break after each
> step and wait for user input)
>
> 2. Alter input before proceeding to the next step.
>
> 3. Set breakpoints in the input and parse until break point is reached.
>
> 4. Watch the stack, current state, look-aheads at each state.
>
> There are many more possibilities - for example, you can watch a GLR
> parser split and merge as you single step; Also, an editor could be
> provided to compose grammars with syntax highlighting (And indication
> of conflicts as you compose);
>
> I am facing two alternatives to implement this idea:
>
> 1. Take the current release of Bison, and build on its source code to
> produce a visual IDE.

Building a whole IDE for this is a bit massive, I think this should be done as 
a plugin such that users can you this Bison facility in interaction with all 
their other tools.

KDevelop is a rather sophisticated and C++ based IDE that might be worth 
considering. For that side of things, you could jump on this list and discuss 
your idea:

http://barney.cs.uni-potsdam.de/mailman/listinfo/kdevelop-devel


Cheers,

                Frans