Augmented Parser
parse2 produces the aParse parser generator that reads Augmented BNF grammars and produces Java classes that can build parse trees for valid instances of those grammars.
Using an aParse generated parser, a Java program can confirm whether a stream of characters represents a valid instance of a particular grammar. For example, a message passed between two programs that should comply with an agreed protocol. The parse tree of a compliant message can be used by the Java program to process the message content.
For example, to generate
- html source so the content can be viewed using a web browser,
- an SQL INSERT statement to insert the content into a database table,
- an XML version of the message as input to a DOM or SAX parser.
Augmented BNF is particularly useful when there are few or no delimiting separators between message elements and their identification relies on their length or format. This makes aParse parsers ideally suited to the interpretation of protocol messages.
aParse is free to download and use without any obligations or limitations.