What a coincidence!
I recently discovered ABC, and decided that writing an ABC parser would be a
great way to get up to speed on Boost's Spirit library. For details on
spirit, see http://spirit.sourceforge.net/
I decided to get on this list to see if there were already resources
available for parsing.
I'm a C++ programmer, so I would want the parser written in C++.
I've just started playing with it, but here are my musings so far:
I see two tasks: agreeing on the data structure that is the output, and
actually writing the parser. I envision a function that looks something like
this:
bool bSuccess = ParseABC(const char* szSource, CMusic& output,
CParsingErrors& errors);
Where output is a complex structure that contains a list of tunes, where
each tune is a list of directives, and a list of lines made up of a list of
notes, bar lines, etc.
Creating the CMusic structure so that anything legal in the current or a
future version of ABC can be expressed is crucial.
CParsingErrors would be a list of errors it found with enough info that a
smart program could help the user identify the problem. If possible, even
with a syntax error, CMusic should contain as much as it can figure out
safely, perhaps with a marker to the places that have syntax errors.
It would be hard for me to envision a way to create the CMusic structure so
that it would be readable in C or VB, because it would probably make heavy
use of container classes. A wrapper could be provided, though.
Anyway, as soon as I started thinking about actually doing something with
this, I got very busy. I won't have much time to do anything except discuss
until mid summer, but after that point, if I can help, I'd be happy to.
Paul Rosen
--- Life is a musical, every once in a while
the plot stops and you start singing and dancing ---
http://home.earthlink.net/~paulerosen/brbb/
http://home.earthlink.net/~theplums/
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