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digitalmars.D.announce - Initial release of Goldie: GOLD Parser Engine for D

reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
First release of Goldie is now available on DSource.
http://www.dsource.org/projects/goldie

Goldie (pronounced "goal D") is a GOLD Engine for D. It gives D developers 
the ability to easily load, lex and parse a text/source file according to 
any grammar defined using the excellent GOLD Parser Builder tool ( 
http://www.devincook.com/goldparser/ ).

Alternatively, Goldie can be used to merely load a GOLD .cgt file ("Compiled 
Grammar Table") if you would like to create your own GOLD lexer/parser.

Goldie is currently at it's first release, v0.01. It is fully-usable and has 
been tested on both Windows and Linux, although the API is still subject to 
change. Goldie is licensed under The zlib/libpng License.
Aug 26 2009
next sibling parent reply Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz <gradha titanium.sabren.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky escribió:

 First release of Goldie is now available on DSource.
 http://www.dsource.org/projects/goldie
 
 Goldie (pronounced "goal D") is a GOLD Engine for D. It gives D developers 
 the ability to easily load, lex and parse a text/source file according to 
 any grammar defined using the excellent GOLD Parser Builder tool ( 
 http://www.devincook.com/goldparser/ ).
 
 Alternatively, Goldie can be used to merely load a GOLD .cgt file ("Compiled 
 Grammar Table") if you would like to create your own GOLD lexer/parser.
 
 Goldie is currently at it's first release, v0.01. It is fully-usable and has 
 been tested on both Windows and Linux, although the API is still subject to 
 change. Goldie is licensed under The zlib/libpng License.


I googled for GOLD vs ANTLR and only found a thread five years ago that 
stated ANTLR was better if you wanted the full kitchen sink, and GOLD 
was just a bunch of hacks.

Has somebody a link to a more recent comparison or do I have to write my 
own homework?
Aug 28 2009
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz" <gradha titanium.sabren.com> wrote in message 
news:h78ojv$duj$1 digitalmars.com...

 I googled for GOLD vs ANTLR and only found a thread five years ago that 
 stated ANTLR was better if you wanted the full kitchen sink, and GOLD was 
 just a bunch of hacks.

 Has somebody a link to a more recent comparison or do I have to write my 
 own homework?


You're right, it does seem to be hard to find a good comparison of the two. 
Here's what I was able to find:

Another one a few years old:
http://www.antlr.org/pipermail/antlr-interest/2004-October/009730.html

Newer, but somewhat one-sided in favor of GOLD:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=566251&cid=23579953

Includes a lot of other parser generators:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_parser_generators#Context-free_languages

I have only very limited experience with ANTLR, and I've spent much more 
time with GOLD (Which I personally prefer, as you can probably tell from the 
fact that I wrote a GOLD engine ;) ), but here's my best attempt at an 
accurate neutral comparison:

[Neutral?] - GOLD is LALR and ANTLR is LL(*) (For whatever that information 
is worth....You could probably find an LALR vs LL(*) comparison somewhere.)

[Pro ANTLR] - ANTLR is open-source and cross-platform (because it runs on 
the JVM). But, GOLD is only available on Windows (although it might work on 
wine, I haven't tried) and doesn't have any released source (although it is 
freeware). However, FWIW, I do intend to make and release an open-source 
cross-platform equivalent to GOLD (fully-compatible with GOLD, of course).

[Pro ANTLR] - ANTLR's grammar definition syntax includes certain bells and 
whistles that GOLD doesn't have, like extensive rewrite rules (with GOLD, 
you have to do rewrites yourself in your app).

[Pro GOLD] - I personally find ANTLR very difficult to learn as it's 
documentation seems to be quite poor. GOLD has very good documentation 
(although that's probably to be expected since GOLD seems to be much 
simpler).

[Pro ANTLR] - ANTLR seems to be much more popular and more heavily used. 
Sometimes a large user base can be good.

[Pro GOLD] - GOLD has much better support for various host languages (by 
that I mean languages that can be used to write the programs that will 
parse/manipulate the generated grammars). GOLD already supports far more 
host languages than ANTLR, and I'm certain this is because adding support 
for a host language is far easier in GOLD. Also, there's no ANTLR for D (I 
tried a while ago, but gave up since it was such a huge painful undertaking, 
I basically would have had to port an entire production-level Java app to 
D).

[Neutral] - With GOLD, host language is completely separated from grammar. 
This allows for far more flexibility (see some of the items below) and it 
makes the grammars much more reusable, but the cost is that you lose the 
convenience of being able to embed code directly into your grammar.

[Pro GOLD] - Since ANTLR wants to convert all it's grammars directly to 
lexer/parser source code, it's not a good choice for programs that need to 
be able to work with grammars that the *users* of your program generate. For 
example, I used GOLD to write a program that outputs the parse tree of any 
source file written in any GOLD grammar. An equivalent ANTLR program would 
have been far more difficult to create and to use.

[Pro GOLD] - Both GOLD and ANTLR come with GUI tools to help build grammars, 
but ANTLR's official GUI tool only works with grammars that have embedded 
Java (ie, grammars that are designed to be generated into a Java app, and 
not any other host language.) Because of GOLD's language-neutrality, it's 
GUI tool is helpful regardless of your desired host app.

[Pro ANTLR?] - GOLD's GUI tool *is* GOLD, and so (unless I'm mistaken) you 
can't use it as a command-line app (but I've found compiling grammars with 
it to be very painless, anyway). I *think* ANTLR can be used command-line. 
(But again, FWIW, I do intend to create an GOLD-compatible program that will 
work on the command line)

[Neutral] - ANTLR's GUI tool is probably a little more fully-featured 
(although maybe doesn't provide quite as detailed information, but then, 
maybe it doesn't need to), but in my experience, it's also very sluggish and 
resource-intensive.
Aug 28 2009
next sibling parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky, el 28 de agosto a las 16:47 me escribiste:

 [Pro ANTLR?] - GOLD's GUI tool *is* GOLD, and so (unless I'm mistaken) you 
 can't use it as a command-line app (but I've found compiling grammars with 
 it to be very painless, anyway). I *think* ANTLR can be used command-line. 
 (But again, FWIW, I do intend to create an GOLD-compatible program that will 
 work on the command line)


I don't know if you has seen Gazelle. It goal is similar to GOLD, to be
able to reuse the grammars easily. It's C and still in development (it
doesn't have any tools to write grammars or anything) but looks promising.

http://www.reverberate.org/gazelle/

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (luca) | Blog colectivo: http://www.mazziblog.com.ar/blog/
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Are you nervy, irritable, depressed, tired of life.
Keep it up.
	-- Monty Python
Aug 28 2009
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Leandro Lucarella" <llucax gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:20090828211541.GA31527 homero.springfield.home...

 Nick Sabalausky, el 28 de agosto a las 16:47 me escribiste:

 [Pro ANTLR?] - GOLD's GUI tool *is* GOLD, and so (unless I'm mistaken) 
 you
 can't use it as a command-line app (but I've found compiling grammars 
 with
 it to be very painless, anyway). I *think* ANTLR can be used 
 command-line.
 (But again, FWIW, I do intend to create an GOLD-compatible program that 
 will
 work on the command line)


 I don't know if you has seen Gazelle. It goal is similar to GOLD, to be
 able to reuse the grammars easily. It's C and still in development (it
 doesn't have any tools to write grammars or anything) but looks promising.

 http://www.reverberate.org/gazelle/


Interesting, thanks for the link. That does sound similar to what I want to 
do, just that I'm doing it in D and using GOLD as a starting point and 
growing from there. Be interesting to see how both turn out.
Aug 28 2009
prev sibling parent Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz <gradha titanium.sabren.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky escribió:

 I have only very limited experience with ANTLR, and I've spent much more 
 time with GOLD (Which I personally prefer, as you can probably tell from the 
 fact that I wrote a GOLD engine ;) ), but here's my best attempt at an 
 accurate neutral comparison:  [...]


Thank you very much for the detailed answer. Soon I was going to dive 
into ANTLR and didn't even know the existance of GOLD. Will take a look 
at it as I want to favour development in D.
Aug 28 2009
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:h7341p$id1$1 digitalmars.com...

 First release of Goldie is now available on DSource.
 http://www.dsource.org/projects/goldie

 Goldie (pronounced "goal D") is a GOLD Engine for D. It gives D developers 
 the ability to easily load, lex and parse a text/source file according to 
 any grammar defined using the excellent GOLD Parser Builder tool ( 
 http://www.devincook.com/goldparser/ ).

 Alternatively, Goldie can be used to merely load a GOLD .cgt file 
 ("Compiled Grammar Table") if you would like to create your own GOLD 
 lexer/parser.

 Goldie is currently at it's first release, v0.01. It is fully-usable and 
 has been tested on both Windows and Linux, although the API is still 
 subject to change. Goldie is licensed under The zlib/libpng License.


Prepackaged downloadable archives (that also include the required SemiTwist 
D Tools) are now available (in .zip, .7z, and .tar.bz2 formats) for anyone 
who doesn't have or want to use subversion:

http://www.dsource.org/projects/goldie/browser/downloads

The .7z format is highly recommended (for all OSes) because it's roughly 
one-quarter (!) the size of the others.
Sep 01 2009