Recommendation of a parser generator

Fortepianissimo fortepianissimo at yahoo.com.tw
Fri Aug 8 18:06:33 EDT 2003


I'm about to start a new project which will be mostly written in
Python. The first task is to parse some formula-like expressions into
an internal data structure so they can be evaluated.

This parser would be run extensively in the future, so speed is a
consideration, although at this point to get something up and running
is more important. Also there's a strong possibility of changing the
formula grammar in the future (although the change probably would be
some minor addition/changes).

I took a look at http://www.python.org/sigs/parser-sig/towards-standard.html,
and went to check BisonGen and found out it's 2-year old now (this is
the fastest one reported in the survey). I checked YAPPS but accordint
to the author it's not designed for efficiency and the parsing
technique has limitations compared to others. Also checked Simpleparse
and found it has to be installed with another toolkit, etc.

I'd appreciate very much some expert suggestions from the group, like
on the speed, flexibility, portability, and the future prospect (like
to be adopted as the standard etc.).

Thanks a lot!




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