Re: [Boost-users] Interested in parsing tools

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Interested in parsing tools
From: Ramon F Herrera (ramon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-09-12 21:04:52

Diederick C. Niehorster wrote:
> This makes me wonder how Xpressive and Spirit compare, both do
> compiled parsing statements right?
> 
> Can Spirit somehow be seen as Xpressive + more? Why use Xpressive at all then?
> 
> Best,
> Dee
> 

Hi Dee,

While I am far from being an expert (and hope to read answers from 
people more qualified than myself), I was wondering the same thing.

I venture a guess. You draw the line here:

Several tools (Regex, Xpressive, Perl) can grab data, based on regular 
expressions. They can validate whether some statement is a correct 
expression of the target "language".

The more advanced tools, however, can actually put that data into 
action. The passive data becomes a set of executable statements using 
Spirit, ANTLR, etc. You specify things like: "every time you find the 
verb "such-and-such" call my function XYZ with the needed parameters.

Callback functions are the dividing line.

-Ramon