Re: Reduce/Reduce conflict in Algol60 grammar

Our esteemed moderator wrote:


> [Has there ever been a useful truly context free parser?


Sure, lots. IMHO that's the right way to do things, except when the
language design gets in the way.


And I think encoding type information in the grammar is a losing
proposition. I say, let semantic analysis deal with types, and avoid
feedback from semantic analysis into the parser or lexer. "Separation
of concerns" is the appropriate buzzword here.


Here's an example: GNAT (the GNU Ada compiler). The parser deals with
"defining identifier" tokens and "usage identifier" tokens (which are
distinguished by the grammar in a purely context-free manner), and
builds a syntax tree. It knows nothing about the type of each
identifier. A separate semantic analysis phase figures out the type
of each expression (including identifiers).


> ...All the ones I've written have cheated by using symbol table info
> to decide what symbol to return for a variable name and the like. I
> presume that's what Chris is suggesting. -John]


- Bob

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.