Re: Advice needed: book on interpreter construction

ibmstuff@sccsi.com (David PC Wollmann) writes:


>I need to write a simple interpreter and a language as part of a
>database conversion program. The language will be used to define the
>source database, reporting, error handling, target format, etc. I'm
>looking for a good book that deals with interpreters--I've got several
>compiler books but they aren't really much help. A book with example
>code (even fragments) would be very useful as I'm in a big hurry.


Why not just grab a simple readymade language and interpreter from
somewhere on the net and just use it, possibly with tweaks if you
really need some? You can hardly beat such wholesale reuse when
you're in a big hurry. You will of course have to pick one with
copyright conditions that match what you want and need to do with it.
Many are particularly suited to embedding and extending -- lots of
scheme-like or other lisp-like languages, Tcl if you can't/won't use
lisp-like syntax...


After all, the best answer to "I need a wheel, where can I find a book
with examples thereof that I can reuse, I'm in a big hurry" is quite
probably ``lots of excellent makes of wheels are already on the market
at perfectly reasonable prices, and you're probably better off buying
any of those than reinventing your own'' -- particularly since, here,
the already-invented wheels can be free.




Alex
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