boost spirit parsing with no skipper - c++

Question

Think about a preprocessor which will read the raw text (no significant white space or tokens).
There are 3 rules.
resolve_para_entry should solve the Argument inside a call. The top-level text is returned as string.
resolve_para should resolve the whole Parameter list and put all the top-level Parameter in a string list.
resolve is the entry
On the way I track the iterator and get the text portion
Samples:
sometext(para) → expect para in the string list
sometext(para1,para2) → expect para1 and para2 in string list
sometext(call(a)) → expect call(a) in the string list
sometext(call(a,b)) ← here it fails; it seams that the "!lit(',')" wont take the Parser to step outside ..
Rules:
resolve_para_entry = +(
(iter_pos >> lit('(') >> (resolve_para_entry | eps) >> lit(')') >> iter_pos) [_val= phoenix::bind(&appendString, _val, _1,_3)]
| (!lit(',') >> !lit(')') >> !lit('(') >> (wide::char_ | wide::space)) [_val = phoenix::bind(&appendChar, _val, _1)]
);
resolve_para = (lit('(') >> lit(')'))[_val = std::vector<std::wstring>()] // empty para -> old style
| (lit('(') >> resolve_para_entry >> *(lit(',') >> resolve_para_entry) > lit(')'))[_val = phoenix::bind(&appendStringList, _val, _1, _2)]
| eps;
;
resolve = (iter_pos >> name_valid >> iter_pos >> resolve_para >> iter_pos);
In the end doesn't seem very elegant. Maybe there is a better way to parse such stuff without skipper

Answer 1

Indeed this should be a lot simpler.
First off, I fail to see why the absense of a skipper is at all relevant.
Second, exposing the raw input is best done using qi::raw[] instead of dancing with iter_pos and clumsy semantic actions¹.
Among the other observations I see:
negating a charset is done with ~, so e.g. ~char_(",()")
(p|eps) would be better spelled -p
(lit('(') >> lit(')')) could be just "()" (after all, there's no skipper, right)
p >> *(',' >> p) is equivalent to p % ','
With the above, resolve_para simplifies to this:
resolve_para = '(' >> -(resolve_para_entry % ',') >> ')';
resolve_para_entry seems weird, to me. It appears that any nested parentheses are simply swallowed. Why not actually parse a recursive grammar so you detect syntax errors?
Here's my take on it:
Define An AST
I prefer to make this the first step because it helps me think about the parser productions:
namespace Ast {
using ArgList = std::list<std::string>;
struct Resolve {
std::string name;
ArgList arglist;
};
using Resolves = std::vector<Resolve>;
}
Creating The Grammar Rules
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolves()> start;
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolve()> resolve;
qi::rule<It, Ast::ArgList()> arglist;
qi::rule<It, std::string()> arg, identifier;
And their definitions:
identifier = char_("a-zA-Z_") >> *char_("a-zA-Z0-9_");
arg = raw [ +('(' >> -arg >> ')' | +~char_(",)(")) ];
arglist = '(' >> -(arg % ',') >> ')';
resolve = identifier >> arglist;
start = *qr::seek[hold[resolve]];
Notes:
No more semantic actions
No more eps
No more iter_pos
I've opted to make arglist not-optional. If you really wanted that, change it back:
resolve = identifier >> -arglist;
But in our sample it will generate a lot of noisy output.
Of course your entry point (start) will be different. I just did the simplest thing that could possibly work, using another handy parser directive from the Spirit Repository (like iter_pos that you were already using): seek[]
The hold is there for this reason: boost::spirit::qi duplicate parsing on the output - You might not need it in your actual parser.
Live On Coliru
#include <boost/fusion/include/adapt_struct.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/repository/include/qi_seek.hpp>
namespace Ast {
using ArgList = std::list<std::string>;
struct Resolve {
std::string name;
ArgList arglist;
};
using Resolves = std::vector<Resolve>;
}
BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT(Ast::Resolve, name, arglist)
namespace qi = boost::spirit::qi;
namespace qr = boost::spirit::repository::qi;
template <typename It>
struct Parser : qi::grammar<It, Ast::Resolves()>
{
Parser() : Parser::base_type(start) {
using namespace qi;
identifier = char_("a-zA-Z_") >> *char_("a-zA-Z0-9_");
arg = raw [ +('(' >> -arg >> ')' | +~char_(",)(")) ];
arglist = '(' >> -(arg % ',') >> ')';
resolve = identifier >> arglist;
start = *qr::seek[hold[resolve]];
}
private:
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolves()> start;
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolve()> resolve;
qi::rule<It, Ast::ArgList()> arglist;
qi::rule<It, std::string()> arg, identifier;
};
#include <iostream>
int main() {
using It = std::string::const_iterator;
std::string const samples = R"--(
Samples:
sometext(para) → expect para in the string list
sometext(para1,para2) → expect para1 and para2 in string list
sometext(call(a)) → expect call(a) in the string list
sometext(call(a,b)) ← here it fails; it seams that the "!lit(',')" wont make the parser step outside
)--";
It f = samples.begin(), l = samples.end();
Ast::Resolves data;
if (parse(f, l, Parser<It>{}, data)) {
std::cout << "Parsed " << data.size() << " resolves\n";
} else {
std::cout << "Parsing failed\n";
}
for (auto& resolve: data) {
std::cout << " - " << resolve.name << "\n (\n";
for (auto& arg : resolve.arglist) {
std::cout << " " << arg << "\n";
}
std::cout << " )\n";
}
}
Prints
Parsed 6 resolves
- sometext
(
para
)
- sometext
(
para1
para2
)
- sometext
(
call(a)
)
- call
(
a
)
- call
(
a
b
)
- lit
(
'
'
)
More Ideas
That last output shows you a problem with your current grammar: lit(',') should obviously not be seen as a call with two parameters.
I recently did an answer on extracting (nested) function calls with parameters which does things more neatly:
Boost spirit parse rule is not applied
or this one boost spirit reporting semantic error
BONUS
Bonus version that uses string_view and also shows exact line/column information of all extracted words.
Note that it still doesn't require any phoenix or semantic actions. Instead it simply defines the necesary trait to assign to boost::string_view from an iterator range.
Live On Coliru
#include <boost/fusion/include/adapt_struct.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/repository/include/qi_seek.hpp>
#include <boost/utility/string_view.hpp>
namespace Ast {
using Source = boost::string_view;
using ArgList = std::list<Source>;
struct Resolve {
Source name;
ArgList arglist;
};
using Resolves = std::vector<Resolve>;
}
BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT(Ast::Resolve, name, arglist)
namespace boost { namespace spirit { namespace traits {
template <typename It>
struct assign_to_attribute_from_iterators<boost::string_view, It, void> {
static void call(It f, It l, boost::string_view& attr) {
attr = boost::string_view { f.base(), size_t(std::distance(f.base(),l.base())) };
}
};
} } }
namespace qi = boost::spirit::qi;
namespace qr = boost::spirit::repository::qi;
template <typename It>
struct Parser : qi::grammar<It, Ast::Resolves()>
{
Parser() : Parser::base_type(start) {
using namespace qi;
identifier = raw [ char_("a-zA-Z_") >> *char_("a-zA-Z0-9_") ];
arg = raw [ +('(' >> -arg >> ')' | +~char_(",)(")) ];
arglist = '(' >> -(arg % ',') >> ')';
resolve = identifier >> arglist;
start = *qr::seek[hold[resolve]];
}
private:
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolves()> start;
qi::rule<It, Ast::Resolve()> resolve;
qi::rule<It, Ast::ArgList()> arglist;
qi::rule<It, Ast::Source()> arg, identifier;
};
#include <iostream>
struct Annotator {
using Ref = boost::string_view;
struct Manip {
Ref fragment, context;
friend std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, Manip const& m) {
return os << "[" << m.fragment << " at line:" << m.line() << " col:" << m.column() << "]";
}
size_t line() const {
return 1 + std::count(context.begin(), fragment.begin(), '\n');
}
size_t column() const {
return 1 + (fragment.begin() - start_of_line().begin());
}
Ref start_of_line() const {
return context.substr(context.substr(0, fragment.begin()-context.begin()).find_last_of('\n') + 1);
}
};
Ref context;
Manip operator()(Ref what) const { return {what, context}; }
};
int main() {
using It = std::string::const_iterator;
std::string const samples = R"--(Samples:
sometext(para) → expect para in the string list
sometext(para1,para2) → expect para1 and para2 in string list
sometext(call(a)) → expect call(a) in the string list
sometext(call(a,b)) ← here it fails; it seams that the "!lit(',')" wont make the parser step outside
)--";
It f = samples.begin(), l = samples.end();
Ast::Resolves data;
if (parse(f, l, Parser<It>{}, data)) {
std::cout << "Parsed " << data.size() << " resolves\n";
} else {
std::cout << "Parsing failed\n";
}
Annotator annotate{samples};
for (auto& resolve: data) {
std::cout << " - " << annotate(resolve.name) << "\n (\n";
for (auto& arg : resolve.arglist) {
std::cout << " " << annotate(arg) << "\n";
}
std::cout << " )\n";
}
}
Prints
Parsed 6 resolves
- [sometext at line:3 col:1]
(
[para at line:3 col:10]
)
- [sometext at line:4 col:1]
(
[para1 at line:4 col:10]
[para2 at line:4 col:16]
)
- [sometext at line:5 col:1]
(
[call(a) at line:5 col:10]
)
- [call at line:5 col:34]
(
[a at line:5 col:39]
)
- [call at line:6 col:10]
(
[a at line:6 col:15]
[b at line:6 col:17]
)
- [lit at line:6 col:62]
(
[' at line:6 col:66]
[' at line:6 col:68]
)
¹ Boost Spirit: "Semantic actions are evil"?