On Friday 23 June 2006 14:20, Satya wrote: > hi, > I was looking at some of the visual parser generator tools today - I > discovered Anagram (http://www.parsifalsoft.com), and Visual Parse ++ > (http://sand-stone.com) . These tools can generate LALR parsers like > Bison but also come with a nice visual interface to single step > through parses. You compose and debug grammars through an IDE. > Unfortunately both programs are non-free. > > I am considering the possibility of building a free IDE for Bison with > at least the following abilities :
This sounds very interesting and useful. > 1. Single step through a test input file and obtain a trace (like the > one produced by a %debug directive. But now it will break after each > step and wait for user input) > > 2. Alter input before proceeding to the next step. > > 3. Set breakpoints in the input and parse until break point is reached. > > 4. Watch the stack, current state, look-aheads at each state. > > There are many more possibilities - for example, you can watch a GLR > parser split and merge as you single step; Also, an editor could be > provided to compose grammars with syntax highlighting (And indication > of conflicts as you compose); > > I am facing two alternatives to implement this idea: > > 1. Take the current release of Bison, and build on its source code to > produce a visual IDE. Building a whole IDE for this is a bit massive, I think this should be done as a plugin such that users can you this Bison facility in interaction with all their other tools. KDevelop is a rather sophisticated and C++ based IDE that might be worth considering. For that side of things, you could jump on this list and discuss your idea: http://barney.cs.uni-potsdam.de/mailman/listinfo/kdevelop-devel Cheers, Frans
