I've been using ANTLR for my "little" language, SFig: http://code.google.com/p/sfig/
I've used flex/bison (GUN lex and yacc clones) in the past to roll a XSLT parser and have very much liked working with ANTLR as a contrast. ANTLR by default is geared toward creating language parsers that target the Java JVM, however, it can also target C/C++, C# .NET, ActionScript3. (This turns out to be quite advantageous to my particular language project.) I like that lexical definitions are rolled into the same source file as the grammar. I like the ANTLR concept of optionally being able to devise a tree grammar to process AST. I structured SFig in this manner. The first pass creates tree structure AST, and then a second pass can be made over the AST to do actions. In ANTLR you actually encode a tree grammar that looks very similar to the language grammar. For ultra simple languages with very minimalist purposes, doing a tree grammar might be overkill, but it's a handy way to structure things when you get to have a bit more complexity going on. Also, if you buy the ANTLR book, it has a section on doing byte code enhancement, which is way to get introduced to messing with Java byte code. Messing with ANTLR is bound to give inspiration for doing some actually practical language tools - in addition to being a good environment to learn language parsing with. --Roger On Jan 6, 3:43 am, Kram <[email protected]> wrote: > For a while now, I've been wanting to get my hands dirty on Java and > the JVM, by this is mean getting to know bytecode, and how compilers > work, JIT, the JVM in general, etc... > > So the best thing I figure to do is to write my own, very basic, > language for the JVM. Even if it provides no real benefit to anyone, I > would really like to give this a try. > > Languages really interest me and any help on this topic would be > greatly appreciated. > > Thanks a lot, > Mark --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
