Re: LPEG primer

[Philippe Lhoste <PhiLho@...>]

On 18/11/2010 20:50, Lorenzo Donati wrote:
> Since I heard so many people praising Lpeg, I hoped it would be good for me too, but I
> begin to feel I need some experience in grammar design.
> I really had hoped to get along without delving into a CS textbook.

In my experience, PEG parsing is easier to understand than Yacc/Lex or Antlr one.

> (I also read the page on Wikipedia about PEGs, but didn't help much, since it always
> focused on CS issues: parsers, grammars, etc.).

When Lpeg was out, I was excited, because it was simple at the time. It evolved to be 
useful (with many capture cases) but it might be slightly harder to understand. I fear I 
haven't followed closely the latest developments, I should catch up.
Anyway, I am in your case: I have some programming experience, but only a faint CS 
background. I dived into the Wikipedia article, looked at the original article on PEG, 
read various other sources, and I finally found out it wasn't so complex...

> Maybe I'm missing something and effectively LPeg can be used effectively only by people
> with strong CS background ?

Not at all.

> If this is the case, I think that will rule out Lpeg for me ( :-( )

As said, it is worth studying it a bit more. Somehow, it is simpler than regular 
expressions, after all, and much more powerful.
It is worth analyzing Roberto's examples, and making your own exercises on simple grammars.

--
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
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