ANTLR
Original author(s) | Terence Parr and others |
---|---|
Initial release | February 1992 |
Stable release | 4.5.1 / July 15, 2015 |
Development status | in active development |
Written in | Java |
Platform | Cross-platform |
License | BSD License |
Website |
www |
In computer-based language recognition, ANTLR (pronounced Antler), or Another Tool For Language Recognition, is a parser generator that uses LL(*) for parsing. ANTLR is the successor to the Purdue Compiler Construction Tool Set (PCCTS), first developed in 1989, and is under active development. Its maintainer is Professor Terence Parr of the University of San Francisco.
Usage
ANTLR takes as input a grammar that specifies a language and generates as output source code for a recognizer for that language. While version 3 supported generating code in the programming languages Ada95, ActionScript, C, C#, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, Perl, Python, Ruby, and Standard ML,[1] the current release at present only targets Java, C#, JavaScript, Python2 and Python3. A language is specified using a context-free grammar which is expressed using Extended Backus–Naur Form (EBNF).
ANTLR can generate lexers, parsers, tree parsers, and combined lexer-parsers. Parsers can automatically generate abstract syntax trees which can be further processed with tree parsers. ANTLR provides a single consistent notation for specifying lexers, parsers, and tree parsers. This is in contrast with other parser/lexer generators and adds greatly to the tool's ease of use.
By default, ANTLR reads a grammar and generates a recognizer for the language defined by the grammar (i.e. a program that reads an input stream and generates an error if the input stream does not conform to the syntax specified by the grammar). If there are no syntax errors, then the default action is to simply exit without printing any message. In order to do something useful with the language, actions can be attached to grammar elements in the grammar. These actions are written in the programming language in which the recognizer is being generated. When the recognizer is being generated, the actions are embedded in the source code of the recognizer at the appropriate points. Actions can be used to build and check symbol tables and to emit instructions in a target language, in the case of a compiler.
As well as lexers and parsers, ANTLR can be used to generate tree parsers. These are recognizers that process abstract syntax trees which can be automatically generated by parsers. These tree parsers are unique to ANTLR and greatly simplify the processing of abstract syntax trees.
Licensing
ANTLR 3 is free software, published under a three-clause BSD License. Prior versions were released as public domain software.[2] The book The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference, also written by Parr, is available free for charge in source form.
Various plugins have been developed for the Eclipse development environment to support the ANTLR grammar, including ANTLR Studio, a proprietary product, as well as the "ANTLR 2"[3] and "ANTLR 3"[4] plugins for Eclipse hosted on SourceForge.
ANTLR 4
ANTLR 4 deals with left recursion correctly (except for indirect left recursion, i.e. grammars rules x which refer to y which refer to x)[5] and supports actions and attributes flexibly. That is, actions can be defined separately from the grammar, allowing for easier targeting of multiple languages.
Projects
Here is a non-comprehensive list of software built using ANTLR:
- Groovy
- Jython
- Hibernate
- OpenJDK Compiler Grammar project experimental version of the javac compiler based upon a grammar written in ANTLR
- Apex, Salesforce.com's programming language
- The expression evaluator in Numbers, Apple's spreadsheet
- Twitter's search query language
- Weblogic server
- IntelliJ IDEA and Clion.
- Apache Cassandra
- Processing
Example
In the following example, a parser in ANTLR describes the sum of expressions can be seen in the form of "1 + 2 + 3":
// Common options, for example, the target language
options
{
language = "CSharp";
}
// Followed by the parser
class SumParser extends Parser;
options
{
k = 1; // Parser Lookahead: 1 Token
}
// Definition of an expression
statement: INTEGER (PLUS^ INTEGER)*;
// Here the Lexer
class SumLexer extends Lexer;
options
{
k = 1; // Lexer Lookahead: 1 characters
}
PLUS: '+';
DIGIT: ('0'..'9');
INTEGER: (DIGIT)+;
The following listing demonstrates the call of the parser in a program:
TextReader reader;
// (...) Fill TextReader with character
SumLexer lexer = new SumLexer(reader);
SumParser parser = new SumParser(lexer);
parser.expression();
See also
- JavaCC
- SableCC
- DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit
- Coco/R
- Modular Syntax Definition Formalism
- Parboiled (Java)
References
Bibliography
- Parr, Terence (May 17, 2007), The Definitive Antlr Reference: Building Domain-Specific Languages (1st ed.), Pragmatic Bookshelf, p. 376, ISBN 0-9787392-5-6
- Parr, Terence (December 2009), Language Implementation Patterns: Create Your Own Domain-Specific and General Programming Languages (1st ed.), Pragmatic Bookshelf, p. 374, ISBN 978-1-934356-45-6
- Parr, Terence (January 15, 2013), The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference (1st ed.), Pragmatic Bookshelf, p. 328, ISBN 978-1-93435-699-9
Further reading
- T. J. Parr, R. W. Quong, ANTLR: A Predicated-LL(k) Parser Generator, Software—Practice and Experience, Vol. 25(7), 789–810 (July 1995)
External links
- Official website
- ANTLRWorks
- ANTLR Studio
- ANTLR tutorial at the University of Birmingham
- Why Use ANTLR?
- Antlr plugin for Maven