How to have unstructured sections in a file parsed using Antlr - antlr

I am creating a translator from my language into many (all?) other object oriented languages. As part of the language I want to support being able to insert target language code sections into the file. This is actually rather similar to how Antlr supports actions in rules.
So I would like to be able to have the sections begin and end with curlies like this:
{ ...target lang code... }
The issue is that it is quite possible { ... } can show up in the target language code so I need to be able match pairs of curlies.
What I want to be able to do is something like this fragment that I've pulled into its own grammar:
grammar target_lang_block;
options
{
output = AST;
}
entry
: target_lang_block;
target_lang_block
: '{' target_lang_code* '}'
;
target_lang_code
: target_lang_block
| NO_CURLIES
;
WS
: (' ' | '\r' | '\t' | '\n')+ {$channel = HIDDEN;}
;
NO_CURLIES
: ~('{'|'}')+
;
This grammar works by itself (at least to the extent I have tested it).
However, when I put these rules into the larger language, NO_CURLIES seems to eat everything and cause MismatchedTokenExceptions.
I'm not sure how to deal with this situation, but it seems that what I want is to be able to turn NO_CURILES on and off based on if I'm in target_lang_block, but it does not seem that is possible.
Is it possible? Is there another way?
Thanks

Handle the target_lang_block inside the lexer instead:
Target_lang_block
: '{' (~('{' | '}') | Target_lang_block)* '}'
;
And remove NO_CURLIES, of course.

Related

How to implement a string data container and use it to add two strings with Kotlin and Antlr

I'm trying to make my own language parser using Kotlin and Antlr. I'm trying to implement a data container for the string data and have the code execute.
Code to be executed:
val program = """
x = "Hello";
y = "World";
// Expect "Hello World"
print(x ++ y);
"""
So far, my Kotlin backend is:
package backend
import org.antlr.v4.runtime.*
import mygrammar.*
abstract class Data
data class StringData(val value: String) : Data()
data class IntData(val value: Int): Data()
class Context: HashMap<String, Data>()
abstract class Expr {
abstract fun eval(scope: Context): Data
}
class Compiler: PLBaseVisitor<Expr>() {
}
My Antlr grammar is:
grammar PL;
#header {
package mygrammar;
}
program : statement* EOF
;
statement : assignment ';' # assignmentStatement
| expr ';' # exprStatement
;
assignment : 'let' ID '=' expr
;
expr : x=expr '+' y=expr # addExpr
| x=expr '-' y=expr # subExpr
| x=expr '*' y=expr # mulExpr
| x=expr '/' y=expr # divExpr
| '(' expr ')' # parenExpr
| value # valueExpr
;
value : NUMERIC # numericValue
| STRING # stringValue
| ID # idValue
;
NUMERIC : ('0' .. '9')+ ('.' ('0' .. '9')*)?
;
STRING : '"' ( '\\"' | ~'"' )* '"'
;
ID : ('a' .. 'z' | 'A' .. 'Z' | '_') ('a' .. 'z' | 'A' .. 'Z' | '0' .. '9' | '_')*
;
COMMENT : '/*' .*? '*/' -> skip
;
WHITESPACE : (' ' | '\t' | '\r' | '\n')+ -> skip
;
I've been trying to search for the next steps, but whatever I search always seems to give me results for how to compile Kotlin code, not how to compile your own code using Kotlin.
There are quite a few steps between having an ANTLR grammar and executing your code.
The very next step is to use ANTLR to generate source code for a parser to recognize source code matching your grammar. Since Kotlin is pretty good with Java Interop, you could just generate and compile the Java target for your grammar. (If you want to stick with Kotlin, I see there is support for that here ANTLR Kotlin. (I've not used it myself, but do know the Strumenta Community, so I would expect it to be good. (It looks like there's a good intro from them here)
Once you have compiled your generated parser, you should be able to find sample code for calling the parser on your source (program in your example). This will give you a ParseTree. ANTLR provides convenience classes in the form of Listeners and/or Visitors that make it easy to process the resulting parse tree. At this point, ANTLR has provided it's value for you. ANTLR is a tool for generating source code for a parser to recognize your input. The ParseTree is the result of that parsing. From there, it is up to you to decide how to handle interpreting that parse tree and executing the logic.
If your language does not get too much more complicated, and is not particularly performance sensitive, you might get by with logic to visit the tree performing the logic represented there (keep a dictionary of values, interpreting and performing the operations in the ParseTree, etc.)
Your question suggests that you may expect ANTLR to be able to compile and execute your logic. That's just simply not the case. What I've outlined would be the next steps in a way forward, and there are many ways that you may choose to get to execution of the logic.
If you need an intro to ANTLR this one is pretty good: ANTLR Mega Tutorial
And this page links to many more Strumenta ANTLR articles

String Interpolation in Antlr4

I have a grammar that uses modes to do string interpolation:
Something along the lines of:
lexer grammar Example;
//default mode tokens
LBRACE: '{' -> pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
RBRACE: '}' -> popMode;
OPEN_STRING: '"' -> pushMode(STRING);
mode STRING;
ID_INTERPOLATION: '$' IDEN;
OPEN_EXPR_INTERPOLATION: '${' -> pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
TEXT: '$' | (~[$\r\n])+;
CLOSE_STRING: '"' -> popMode;
parser grammar ExampleParser;
options {tokenVocab = Example;}
test: string* EOF;
string: OPEN_STRING string_part* CLOSE_STRING;
string_part: TEXT | ID_INTERPOLATION | OPEN_EXPR_INTERPOLATION expr RBRACE;
//more rules that use LBRACE and RBRACE
Now this works and tokenizes everything mostly how I want it, but it does have 2 flaws.
if the number of RBRACES goes too far, it can pop the first default mode which can glitch out the IDE, and does not just show an error.
The token for closing a block and closing interpolation is the same, so I cannot highlight them however I want. (this is the main one)
My IDE highlights based on tokens only, so this is a problem, I'd like to be able to highlight them differently. So basically I'd like a solution for this that makes the RBRACE a different token when it's in a string.
I'd prefer to do it without semantic predicates because I don't want to tie it down to a language, but if needed, I'm ok with it, I just might need a little more explanation because I haven't used them that much.
Thank you #sepp2k for helping me solve my issue.
It's a bit of a hack but it does exactly what I need it to
I solved it by changing my popMode on RBRACE to be the following:
RBRACE: '}' {
if(_modeStack.size() > 0) {
popMode();
if(_mode != DEFAULT_MODE) {
setType(EXPR_INTERPOLATION);
}
}
};
I also changed my parser to be
string_part: TEXT | ID_INTERPOLATION | EXPR_INTERPOLATION expr EXPR_INTERPOLATION;
I know it's pretty hacky to change the token type under a specific circumstance, but it got the job done for me, so I'm gonna keep it unless I find a less hacky way to do this.
So I set out to implement an interpolated string parser with using only ANTLR code (no host language code blocks). I found that this works well, including nesting interpolated strings...
lexer grammar Lexer;
LeftBrace: '{';
RightBrace: '}' -> popMode;
Backtick: '`' -> pushMode(InterpolatedString);
Integer: [0-9]+;
Plus: '+';
mode InterpolatedString;
EscapedLeftBrace: '\\{' -> type(Grapheme);
EscapedBacktick: '\\`' -> type(Grapheme);
ExprStart: '{' -> type(LeftBrace), pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
End: '`' -> type(Backtick), popMode;
Grapheme: ~('{' | '`');
parser grammar Parser;
options {
tokenVocab = Lexer;
}
startRule: expression EOF;
interpolatedString: Backtick (Grapheme | interpolatedStringExpression)* Backtick;
interpolatedStringExpression: LeftBrace expression RightBrace;
expression
: expression Plus expression
| atom
;
atom: Integer | interpolatedString;
You can test it with input
`{`{`{`{`{`{`{`hello world`}`}`}`}`}`}`}`

Parse string antlr

I have strings as a parser rule rather than lexer because strings may contain escapes with expressions in them, such as "The variable is \(variable)".
string
: '"' character* '"'
;
character
: escapeSequence
| .
;
escapeSequence
: '\(' expression ')'
;
IDENTIFIER
: [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*
;
WHITESPACE
: [ \r\t,] -> skip
;
This doesn't work because . matches any token rather than any character, so many identifiers will be matched and whitespace will be completely ignored.
How can I parse strings that can have expressions inside of them?
Looking into the parser for Swift and Javascript, both languages that support things like this, I can't figure out how they work. From what I can tell, they just output a string such as "my string with (variables) in it" without actually being able to parse the variable as its own thing.
This problem can be approached using lexical modes by having one mode for the inside of strings and one (or more) for the outside. Seeing a " on the outside would switch to the inside mode and seeing a \( or " would switch back outside. The only complicated part would be seeing a ) on the outside: Sometimes it should switch back to the inside (because it corresponds to a \() and some times it shouldn't (when it corresponds to a plain ().
The most basic way to achieve this would be like this:
Lexer:
lexer grammar StringLexer;
IDENTIFIER: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]* ;
DQUOTE: '"' -> pushMode(IN_STRING);
LPAR: '(' -> pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
RPAR: ')' -> popMode;
mode IN_STRING;
TEXT: ~[\\"]+ ;
BACKSLASH_PAREN: '\\(' -> pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
ESCAPE_SEQUENCE: '\\' . ;
DQUOTE_IN_STRING: '"' -> type(DQUOTE), popMode;
Parser:
parser grammar StringParser;
options {
tokenVocab = 'StringLexer';
}
start: exp EOF ;
exp : '(' exp ')'
| IDENTIFIER
| DQUOTE stringContents* DQUOTE
;
stringContents : TEXT
| ESCAPE_SEQUENCE
| '\\(' exp ')'
;
Here we push the default mode every time we see a ( or \( and pop the mode every time we see a ). This way it will go back inside the string only if the mode on top of the stack is the string mode, which would only be the case if there aren't any unclosed ( left since the last \(.
This approach works, but has the downside that an unmatched ) will cause an empty stack exception rather than a normal syntax error because we're calling popMode on an empty stack.
To avoid this, we can add a member that tracks how deeply nested we are inside parentheses and doesn't pop the stack when the nesting level is 0 (i.e. if the stack is empty):
#members {
int nesting = 0;
}
LPAR: '(' {
nesting++;
pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
};
RPAR: ')' {
if (nesting > 0) {
nesting--;
popMode();
}
};
mode IN_STRING;
BACKSLASH_PAREN: '\\(' {
nesting++;
pushMode(DEFAULT_MODE);
};
(The parts I left out are the same as in the previous version).
This works and produces normal syntax errors for unmatched )s. However, it contains actions and is thus no longer language-agnostic, which is only a problem if you plan to use the grammar from multiple languages (and depending on the language, you might even be lucky and the code might be valid in all of your targeted languages).
If you want to avoid actions, the last alternative would be to have three modes: One for code that's outside of any strings, one for the inside of the string and one for the inside of \(). The third one will be almost identical to the outer one, except that it will push and pop the mode when seeing parentheses, whereas the outer one will not. To make both modes produce the same types of tokens, the rules in the third mode will all call type(). This will look like this:
lexer grammar StringLexer;
IDENTIFIER: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]* ;
DQUOTE: '"' -> pushMode(IN_STRING);
LPAR: '(';
RPAR: ')';
mode IN_STRING;
TEXT: ~[\\"]+ ;
BACKSLASH_PAREN: '\\(' -> pushMode(EMBEDDED);
ESCAPE_SEQUENCE: '\\' . ;
DQUOTE_IN_STRING: '"' -> type(DQUOTE), popMode;
mode EMBEDDED;
E_IDENTIFIER: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]* -> type(IDENTIFIER);
E_DQUOTE: '"' -> pushMode(IN_STRING), type(DQUOTE);
E_LPAR: '(' -> type(LPAR), pushMode(EMBEDDED);
E_RPAR: ')' -> type(RPAR), popMode;
Note that we now can no longer use string literals in the parser grammar because string literals can't be used when multiple lexer rules are defined using the same string literal. So now we have to use LPAR instead of '(' in the parser and so on (we already had to do this for DQUOTE for the same reason).
Since this version involves a lot of duplication (especially as the amount of tokens rises) and prevents the use of string literals in the parser grammar, I generally prefer the version with the actions.
The full code for all three alternatives can also be found on GitHub.

Antlr 3 keywords and identifiers colliding

Surprise, I am building an SQL like language parser for a project.
I had it mostly working, but when I started testing it against real requests it would be handling, I realized it was behaving differently on the inside than I thought.
The main issue in the following grammar is that I define a lexer rule PCT_WITHIN for the language keyword 'pct_within'. This works fine, but if I try to match a field like 'attributes.pct_vac', I get the field having text of 'attributes.ac' and a pretty ANTLR error of:
line 1:15 mismatched character u'v' expecting 'c'
GRAMMAR
grammar Select;
options {
language=Python;
}
eval returns [value]
: field EOF
;
field returns [value]
: fieldsegments {print $field.text}
;
fieldsegments
: fieldsegment (DOT (fieldsegment))*
;
fieldsegment
: ICHAR+ (USCORE ICHAR+)*
;
WS : ('\t' | ' ' | '\r' | '\n')+ {self.skip();};
ICHAR : ('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z');
PCT_CONTAINS : 'pct_contains';
USCORE : '_';
DOT : '.';
I have been reading everything I can find on the topic. How the Lexer consumes stuff as it finds it even if it is wrong. How you can use semantic predication to remove ambiguity/how to use lookahead. But everything I read hasn't helped me fix this issue.
Honestly I don't see how it even CAN be an issue. I must be missing something super obvious because other grammars I see have Lexer rules like EXISTS but that doesn't cause the parser to take a string like 'existsOrNot' and spit out and IDENTIFIER with the text of 'rNot'.
What am I missing or doing completely wrong?
Convert your fieldsegment parser rule into a lexer rule. As it stands now it will accept input like
"abc
_ abc"
which is probably not what you want. The keyword "pct_contains" won't be matched by this rule since it is defined separately. If you want to accept the keyword in certain sequences as regular identifier you will have to include it in the accepted identifier rule.

ANTLR - identifier with whitespace

i want identifiers that can contain whitespace.
grammar WhitespaceInSymbols;
premise : ( options {greedy=false;} : 'IF' ) id=ID{
System.out.println($id.text);
};
ID : ('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z')+ (' '('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z')+)*
;
WS : ' '+ {skip();}
;
When i test this with "IF statement analyzed" i get a MissingTokenException and the output "IF statement analyzed".
I thought, that by using greedy=false i could tell ANTLR to exit afer 'IF' and take it as a token. But instead the IF is part of the ID.
Is there a way to achieve my goal? I already tried some variations of the greed=false-option, but without success.
I thought, that by using greedy=false i could tell ANTLR to exit afer 'IF' and take it as a token.
No, the parser has nothing to say about the creation of tokens: the input is first tokenized and then the parser rules are applied on these tokens. So setting greedy=false has no effect.
You can do this (creating ID tokens with white spaces), but it will be a horrible solution with many predicates, and a few custom methods in the lexer doing manual look-aheads: you really, really don't want this! A much cleaner solution would be to introduce a id rule in your parser and let it match one or more ID tokens.
A demo:
grammar WhitespaceInSymbols;
premise
: IF id THEN EOF
;
id
: ID+
;
IF
: 'IF'
;
THEN
: 'THEN'
;
ID
: ('a'..'z' | 'A'..'Z')+
;
WS
: ' '+ {skip();}
;
would parse the input IF statement analyzed THEN into the following tree: