NAME MarpaX::Repa - helps start with Marpa SYNOPSIS Shipped with distribution - examples/synopsis.pl: use 5.010; use strict; use warnings; use lib 'lib/'; use Marpa::R2; use MarpaX::Repa::Lexer; use MarpaX::Repa::Actions; my $grammar = Marpa::R2::Grammar->new( { action_object => 'MarpaX::Repa::Actions', default_action => 'do_scalar_or_list', start => 'query', rules => [ { lhs => 'query', rhs => [qw(condition)], min => 1, separator => 'OP', proper => 1, keep => 1, }, [ condition => [qw(word)] ], [ condition => [qw(quoted)] ], [ condition => [qw(OPEN-PAREN SPACE? query SPACE? CLOSE-PAREN)] ], [ condition => [qw(NOT condition)] ], [ 'SPACE?' => [] ], { lhs => 'SPACE?', rhs => [qw(SPACE)], action => 'do_ignore', }, ], }); $grammar->precompute; my $recognizer = Marpa::R2::Recognizer->new( { grammar => $grammar } ); use Regexp::Common qw /delimited/; my $lexer = MyLexer->new( recognizer => $recognizer, tokens => { word => { match => qr{\b\w+\b}, store => 'scalar' }, 'quoted' => { match => qr[$RE{delimited}{-delim=>qq{\"}}], store => sub { ${$_[1]} =~ s/^"//; ${$_[1]} =~ s/"$//; ${$_[1]} =~ s/\\([\\"])/$1/g; return $_[1]; }, }, OP => { match => qr{\s+OR\s+|\s+}, store => sub { ${$_[1]} =~ /\S/? \'|' : \'&' } }, NOT => { match => '!', store => sub {\'!'} }, 'OPEN-PAREN' => { match => '(', store => 'undef' }, 'CLOSE-PAREN' => { match => ')', store => 'undef' }, 'SPACE' => { match => qr{\s+}, store => 'undef' }, }, debug => 1, ); $lexer->recognize(\*DATA); use Data::Dumper; print Dumper $recognizer->value; package MyLexer; use base 'MarpaX::Repa::Lexer'; sub grow_buffer { my $self = shift; my $rv = $self->SUPER::grow_buffer( @_ ); ${ $self->buffer } =~ s/[\r\n]+//g; return $rv; } package main; __DATA__ hello !world OR "he hehe hee" ( foo OR !boo ) WARNING This is experimental module in beta stage. Some API still may change, but it's already very close to stability. DESCRIPTION This module helps you start with Marpa::R2 parser and simplifies lexing. TUTORIAL Where to start Here is template you can start a new parser from (shipped with distribution - examples/template.pl): use strict; use warnings; use Marpa::R2; use MarpaX::Repa::Lexer; use MarpaX::Repa::Actions; my $grammar = Marpa::R2::Grammar->new( { action_object => 'MarpaX::Repa::Actions', start => 'query', rules => [ [ query => [qw(something)] ], ], }); $grammar->precompute; my $recognizer = Marpa::R2::Recognizer->new( { grammar => $grammar } ); my $lexer = MarpaX::Repa::Lexer->new( recognizer => $recognizer, tokens => {}, debug => 1, ); $lexer->recognize(\*DATA); __DATA__ hello !world "he hehe hee" ( foo OR boo ) It's a working program that prints the following output: Expect token(s): 'something' Buffer start: hello !world "he heh... Unknown token: 'something' Failed to parse: Problem in ... First line says that at this moment parser expects 'something'. It's going to look for it in the following text (second line). Third line says that lexer doesn't know anything about 'something'. It's not a surprise that parsing fails. What can we do with 'something'? We either put it into grammar or lexer. In above example it's pretty obvious that it's gonna be in the grammar. Put some grammar rules => [ # query is a sequence of conditions separated with OPs { lhs => 'query', rhs => [qw(condition)], min => 1, separator => 'OP', proper => 1, keep => 1, }, # each condition can be one of the following [ condition => [qw(word)] ], [ condition => [qw(quoted)] ], [ condition => [qw(OPEN-PAREN SPACE? query SPACE? CLOSE-PAREN)] ], [ condition => [qw(NOT condition)] ], ], Our program works and gives us helpful results: Expect token(s): 'word', 'quoted', 'OPEN-PAREN', 'NOT' Buffer start: hello !world OR "he ... Unknown token: 'word' ... First token tokens => { word => qr{\w+}, }, Ouput: Expect token(s): 'word', 'quoted', 'OPEN-PAREN', 'NOT' Buffer start: hello !world OR "he ... Token 'word' matched hello Unknown token: 'quoted' Unknown token: 'OPEN-PAREN' Unknown token: 'NOT' Expect token(s): 'OP' Congrats! First token matched. More tokens: use Regexp::Common qw /delimited/; my $lexer = MarpaX::Repa::Lexer->new( recognizer => $recognizer, tokens => { word => qr{\b\w+\b}, OP => qr{\s+|\s+OR\s+}, NOT => '!', 'OPEN-PAREN' => '(', 'CLOSE-PAREN' => ')', 'quoted' => qr[$RE{delimited}{-delim=>qq{\"}}], }, debug => 1, ); Tokens matching empty string You can not have such. In our example grammar we have 'SPACE?' that is optional. You could try to use "qr{\s*}", but lexer would die with an error. Instead use the following rules: rules => [ ... [ 'SPACE?' => [] ], [ 'SPACE?' => [qw(SPACE)] ], ], ... tokens => { ... 'SPACE' => qr{\s+}, }, Lexer's ambiguity This module uses marpa's alternative input model what allows you to describe an ambiguous lexer, e.g. several tokens start at the same position. This does not always give you multiple parse trees, but allows you to start faster and keep improving tokens and grammar to avoid unnecessary ambiguity cases. Longest token match Let's look at string "x OR y". It should match "word OP word", but it matches "word OP word OP word" and it's not correct. It happens because of how we defined OP token - "qr{\s+|\s+OR\s+}". If we change it to "qr{\s+OR\s+|\s+}" then we get correct result. Input buffer By default lexer reads data from the input stream in chunks into a buffer and grow the buffer only when it's shorter than "min_buffer" bytes. By default it's 4kb. This is good for memory consuption, but it can result in troubles when a terminal may be larger than a buffer. For example consider a document with embedded base64 encoded binary files. You can use several solutions to workaround this problem. Read everything into memory. Simplest way out. It's not default value to avoid encouragement: my $lexer = MarpaX::Repa::Lexer->new( min_buffer => 0, ... ); Use larger buffer: my $lexer = MarpaX::Repa::Lexer->new( min_buffer => 10*1024*1024, # 10MB ... ); Use built in protection from such cases. When a token based on a regular expression matches whole buffer and buffer still can grow then lexer grows buffer and retries. This allows you to write a regular expression that matches till end of token or end of input ("$"). Note that this may result in token incomplete match if input ends right in the middle of it. tokens => { ... 'text-paragraph' => qr{\w[\w\s]+?(?:\n\n|$)}, }, Adjust grammar. In most cases you can split a long terminal into multiple terminals with limitted length. For example: rules => [ ... { lhs => 'text', rhs => 'text-chunk', min => 1 }, ], Filtering input Input can be filtered with subclassing grow_buffer method: package MyLexer; use base 'MarpaX::Repa::Lexer'; sub grow_buffer { my $self = shift; my $rv = $self->SUPER::grow_buffer( @_ ); ${ $self->buffer } =~ s/[\r\n]+//g; return $rv; } Actions Repa comes with set of actions to help you start by concentrating on grammar. Start from : my $grammar = Marpa::R2::Grammar->new( { action_object => 'MarpaX::Repa::Actions', default_action => 'do_what_I_mean', ... ); Token's values Values of tokens are set to a hash by default: { token => 'a token name', value => 'matched value' } You can change format per token or for all tokens using 'store' option, see "SYNOPSIS" for examples and MarpaX::Repa::Lexer for full list. What's next Add more actions. Experiment. Enjoy. AUTHOR Ruslan Zakirov LICENSE Under the same terms as perl itself.