Re: [Boost-users] Spirit with UI Tools

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Spirit with UI Tools
From: Philipp Kraus (philipp.kraus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-11-04 07:01:05

Hello

Am 03.11.2014 um 15:45 schrieb Larry Evans <cppljevans_at_[hidden]>:

> Why couldn't you use Spirit to describe spirit grammar?  IOW,
> a grammar has a syntax:
> 
>  grammar = +production;
>  productions = +(terminal|non_terminal|action);
>  non_termainal = non_term_1|non_term_2|...|non_term_Nnon;
>  terminal = term_1|term_2|...|term_Nterm;
>  action = act_1|act_2|...|act_Nact;

I know this, but I would like to shown the „plain text grammar“ in a structure like (E)BNF
for documentation. 

> Couldn't this grammar be described using spirit, and that spirit
> "source" grammar could be used to *read* your the grammar you actually
> want from a file and create the actual "target" grammar you want?

The grammar shouldn’t read from a file at runtime, it should be build-in

> After all, I don't see what Antlr would buy you because, IIUC, you'll
> havde to do essentially the same thing, except using Antlr you have to
> learn to systems, Antlr as well as spirit.

AntLR is a nice tool to create a visual representation of the grammar and
it can be also helpful during the developing of the grammar. In my case
I would like to create a logical language and don’t want to create a
„hard encoding spirit code“, so I would like to design the grammar in a
UI tool and create from the visual representation the Spirit code and
paste it in my class file which create parser & lexer.

UI Grammer Modelling -> Spirit Code Generator -> Spirit Code -> Lexer / Parser

Hope this is a bit clearer. Did you know a UI modeling tool or anything helpful for this
developing process?

Thanks

Phil