ANTLR grammar error - antlr

Question

I'm trying to built C-- compiler using ANTLR 3.4.
Full set of the grammar listed here,
program : (vardeclaration | fundeclaration)* ;
vardeclaration : INT ID (OPENSQ NUM CLOSESQ)? SEMICOL ;
fundeclaration : typespecifier ID OPENP params CLOSEP compoundstmt ;
typespecifier : INT | VOID ;
params : VOID | paramlist ;
paramlist : param (COMMA param)* ;
param : INT ID (OPENSQ CLOSESQ)? ;
compoundstmt : OPENCUR vardeclaration* statement* CLOSECUR ;
statementlist : statement* ;
statement : expressionstmt | compoundstmt | selectionstmt | iterationstmt | returnstmt;
expressionstmt : (expression)? SEMICOL;
selectionstmt : IF OPENP expression CLOSEP statement (options {greedy=true;}: ELSE statement)?;
iterationstmt : WHILE OPENP expression CLOSEP statement;
returnstmt : RETURN (expression)? SEMICOL;
expression : (var EQUAL expression) | sampleexpression;
var : ID ( OPENSQ expression CLOSESQ )? ;
sampleexpression: addexpr ( ( LOREQ | LESS | GRTR | GOREQ | EQUAL | NTEQL) addexpr)?;
addexpr : mulexpr ( ( PLUS | MINUS ) mulexpr)*;
mulexpr : factor ( ( MULTI | DIV ) factor )*;
factor : ( OPENP expression CLOSEP ) | var | call | NUM;
call : ID OPENP arglist? CLOSEP;
arglist : expression ( COMMA expression)*;
Used lexer rules as following,
ELSE : 'else' ;
IF : 'if' ;
INT : 'int' ;
RETURN : 'return' ;
VOID : 'void' ;
WHILE : 'while' ;
PLUS : '+' ;
MINUS : '-' ;
MULTI : '*' ;
DIV : '/' ;
LESS : '<' ;
LOREQ : '<=' ;
GRTR : '>' ;
GOREQ : '>=' ;
EQUAL : '==' ;
NTEQL : '!=' ;
ASSIGN : '=' ;
SEMICOL : ';' ;
COMMA : ',' ;
OPENP : '(' ;
CLOSEP : ')' ;
OPENSQ : '[' ;
CLOSESQ : ']' ;
OPENCUR : '{' ;
CLOSECUR: '}' ;
SCOMMENT: '/*' ;
ECOMMENT: '*/' ;
ID : ('a'..'z' | 'A'..'Z')+/*(' ')*/ ;
NUM : ('0'..'9')+ ;
WS : (' ' | '\t' | '\n' | '\r')+ {$channel = HIDDEN;};
COMMENT: '/*' .* '*/' {$channel = HIDDEN;};
But I try to save this it give me the error,
error(211): /CMinusMinus/src/CMinusMinus/CMinusMinus.g:33:13: [fatal] rule expression has non-LL(*) decision due to recursive rule invocations reachable from alts 1,2. Resolve by left-factoring or using syntactic predicates or using backtrack=true option.
|---> expression : (var EQUAL expression) | sampleexpression;
1 error
How can I resolve this problem?

Answer 1

As already mentioned: your grammar rule expression is ambiguous: both alternatives in that rule start, or can be, a var.
You need to "help" your parser a bit. If the parse can see a var followed by an EQUAL, it should choose alternative 1, else alternative 2. This can be done by using a syntactic predicate (the (var EQUAL)=> part in the rule below).
expression
: (var EQUAL)=> var EQUAL expression
| sampleexpression
;
More about predicates in this Q&A: What is a 'semantic predicate' in ANTLR?

Answer 2

The problem is this:
expression : (var EQUAL expression) | sampleexpression;
where you either start with var or sampleexpression. But sampleexpression can be reduced to var as well by doing sampleexpression->addExpr->MultExpr->Factor->var
So there is no way to find a k-length predicate for the compiler.
You can as suggested by the error message set backtrack=true to see whether this solves your problem, but it might lead not to the AST - parsetrees you would expect and might also be slow on special input conditions.
You could also try to refactor your grammar to avoid such recursions.