Boost Spirit Qi: Skipper parser does not skip under certain conditions - c++

Question

I am currently implementing a parser which succeeds on the "strongest" match for spirit::qi. There are meaningful applications for such a thing. E.g matching references to either simple refs (eg "willy") or namespace qualified refs (eg. "willy::anton"). That's not my actual real world case but it is almost self-explanatory, I guess. At least it helped me to track down the issue.
I found a solution for that. It works perfectly, when the skipper parser is not involved (i.e. there is nothing to skip). It does not work as expected if there are areas which need skipping.
I believe, I tracked down the problem. It seems like under certain conditions spaces are actually not skipped allthough they should be.
Below is find a self-contained very working example. It loops over some rules and some input to provide enough information. If you run it with BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG enabled, you get in particular the output:
<qualifier>
<try> :: anton</try>
<fail/>
</qualifier>
I think, this one should not have failed. Am I right guessing so? Does anyone know a way to get around that? Or is it just my poor understanding of qi semantics? Thank you very much for your time. :)
My environment: MSVC 2015 latest, target win32 console
#define BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG
#include <io.h>
#include<map>
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
typedef std::string::const_iterator iterator_type;
namespace qi = boost::spirit::qi;
using map_type = std::map<std::string, qi::rule<iterator_type, std::string()>&>;
namespace maxence { namespace parser {
template <typename Iterator>
struct ident : qi::grammar<Iterator, std::string()>
{
ident();
qi::rule<Iterator, std::string()>
id, id_raw;
qi::rule<Iterator, std::string()>
not_used,
qualifier,
qualified_id, simple_id,
id_reference, id_reference_final;
map_type rules = {
{ "E1", id },
{ "E2", id_raw}
};
};
template <typename Iterator>
// we actually don't need the start rule (see below)
ident<Iterator>::ident() : ident::base_type(not_used)
{
id_reference = (!simple_id >> qualified_id) | (!qualified_id >> simple_id);
id_reference_final = id_reference;
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
// standard simple id (not followed by
// delimiter "::")
simple_id = (qi::alpha | '_') >> *(qi::alnum | '_') >> !qi::lit("::");
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
// this is qualifier <- "::" simple_id
// I repeat the simple_id pattern here to make sure
// this demo has no "early match" issues
qualifier = qi::string("::") > (qi::alpha | '_') >> *(qi::alnum | '_');
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
// this is: qualified_id <- simple_id qualifier*
qualified_id = (qi::alpha | '_') >> *(qi::alnum | '_') >> +(qualifier) >> !qi::lit("::");
id = id_reference_final;
id_raw = qi::raw[id_reference_final];
BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODES(
(id)
(id_raw)
(qualifier)
(qualified_id)
(simple_id)
(id_reference)
(id_reference_final)
)
}
}}
int main()
{
maxence::parser::ident<iterator_type> ident;
using ss_map_type = std::map<std::string, std::string>;
ss_map_type parser_input =
{
{ "Simple id (behaves ok)", "willy" },
{ "Qualified id (behaves ok)", "willy::anton" },
{ "Skipper involved (unexpected)", "willy :: anton" }
};
for (ss_map_type::const_iterator input = parser_input.begin(); input != parser_input.end(); input++) {
for (map_type::const_iterator example = ident.rules.begin(); example != ident.rules.end(); example++) {
std::string to_parse = input->second;
std::string result;
std::string parser_name = (example->second).name();
std::cout << "--------------------------------------------" << std::endl;
std::cout << "Description: " << input->first << std::endl;
std::cout << "Parser [" << parser_name << "] parsing [" << to_parse << "]" << std::endl;
auto b(to_parse.begin()), e(to_parse.end());
// --- test for parser success
bool success = qi::phrase_parse(b, e, (example)->second, qi::space, result);
if (success) std::cout << "Parser succeeded. Result: " << result << std::endl;
else std::cout << " Parser failed. " << std::endl;
//--- test for EOI
if (b == e) {
std::cout << "EOI reached.";
if (success) std::cout << " The sun is shining brightly. :)";
} else {
std::cout << "Failure: EOI not reached. Remaining: [";
while (b != e) std::cout << *b++; std::cout << "]";
}
std::cout << std::endl << "--------------------------------------------" << std::endl;
}
}
return 0;
}