Re: [boost] Using lexertl instead of spirit

From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-11-20 17:24:33

Joel de Guzman wrote:
> ben_at_[hidden] wrote:
>> In answer to Paul Giaccone,
>>
>> The main selling point of lexertl as far as boost goes is probably speed. 
>> lexertl lexers are both fast to construct (typically under 100 milliseconds on
>> a modern machine) and fast to tokenise input (the generated state machine uses
>> the flex technique of equivalence classes).
>>
>> I personally like the fact that you can dump the DFA as data and process it
>> later with any language you like too.
> 
> Spirit is a parser, please don't compare apples and oranges.
> You cannot implement, say, Wave, with just a lexer. I suggest
> you don't go the "this-is-better-that-is-better" route. Spirit
> has its own lexer too, FYI. It's called SLex. See Slex in
> http://tinyurl.com/29mcn

Oh and BTW, if you want to talk about speed, matching the speed of
Flex is not good enough. The thing to beat is Re2C! Hartmut and I
shall see how lexertl fares soon. Wave has an adaptable front end
where you can choose your own lexer. Re2C (http://re2c.org/) is
one of them.

Regards,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boost-consulting.com
http://spirit.sf.net