Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!yale!husc6!necntc!ima!johnl From: blia.UUCP!irving@cgl.ucsf.edu (Irving Reid) Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Recursive-descent parser generator wanted Message-ID: <895@ima.ISC.COM> Date: 25 Feb 88 22:16:29 GMT References: <887@ima.ISC.COM> Sender: johnl@ima.ISC.COM Reply-To: blia.UUCP!irving@cgl.ucsf.edu (Irving Reid) Organization: Britton Lee Lines: 19 Summary: Actually, why one might want recursive descent Approved: compilers@ima.UUCP In article <887@ima.ISC.COM> the moderator remarks: >[At the risk of much flamage, I'd be interested in comments about why one >might prefer an R.D. parser generator to an LR one. We've beaten error >recovery to death, unless someone has something genuinely new. -John] One of my reasons for choosing R-D parsers is the ease of writing semantics using full attribute handling. I have some ideas about how a lazy programming language (like Miranda) might allow inherited attributes in an LR parser, but until that day I'll stick to R-D for anything that has relatively tricky semantics (read this as: anything much beyond creating a parse tree) - irving - [From blia.UUCP!irving@cgl.ucsf.edu (Irving Reid)] -- Send compilers articles to ima!compilers or, in a pinch, to Levine@YALE.EDU Plausible paths are { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale | bbn}!ima Please send responses to the originator of the message -- I cannot forward mail accidentally sent back to compilers. Meta-mail to ima!compilers-request