=encoding utf8
=head1 NAME
Pegex - Acmeist PEG Parsing Framework
=head1 SYNOPSIS
use Pegex;
my $data = pegex($grammar)->parse($input);
or with regular expression sugar:
use Pegex::Regex;
$input =~ qr{$grammar}x;
my $data = \%/;
or with options:
use Pegex;
use ReceiverClass;
my $parser = pegex($grammar, {receiver => 'ReceiverClass'});
my $data = $parser->parse(input);
or more explicitly:
use Pegex::Parser;
use Pegex::Grammar;
use Pegex::Compiler;
my $pegex_grammar = Pegex::Grammar->new(
tree => Pegex::Compiler->compile($grammar)->tree,
);
my $parser = Pegex::Parser->new(
grammar => $pegex_grammar,
);
my $data = $parser->parse($input);
or customized explicitly:
package MyGrammar;
use Mo;
extends 'Pegex::Grammar';
has text => default => sub {
"your grammar definition text goes here";
};
has receiver => default => sub{"MyReceiver"};
package MyReceiver;
use base 'Pegex::Receiver';
got_some_rule { ... }
got_other_rule { ... }
package main;
use Pegex::Parser;
my $parser = Pegex::Parser->new(
grammar => MyGrammar->new,
receiver => MyReceiver->new,
);
$parser->parse($input);
my $data = $parser->receiver->data;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Pegex is a Acmeist parser framework. It allows you to easily create parsers
that will work equivalently in lots of programming langugages!
Pegex gets it name by combining Parsing Expression Grammars (PEG), with
Regular Expessions (regex). That's actually what Pegex does.
PEG is the cool new way to elegantly specify recursive descent grammars. The
Perl 6 language is defined in terms of a self modifying PEG language called
B<Perl 6 Rules>. Regular expressions are familar to programmers of most modern
programming languages. Pegex defines a simple PEG syntax, where all the
terminals are regular expressions. This means that Pegex can be quite fast and
powerful.
Pegex attempts to be the simplest way to define new (or old) Domain Specific
Languages (DSLs) that need to be used in several programming languages and
environments.
=head1 Pegex MODULE USAGE
The C<Pegex.pm> module itself is just a trivial way to use the Pegex
framework. It is only intended for the simplest of uses.
This module exports a single function, C<pegex>, which takes a Pegex grammar
string as input. You may also pass a second parameter which is a hash opject
of options.
The C<pegex> function returns a L<Pegex::Parser> object, on which you would
typically call the C<parse()> method, which (on success) will return a data
structure of the parsed data.
=head1 PEGEX OVERVIEW
In the diagram below, there is a simple language called Foo. The diagram shows
how Pegex can take a text grammar defining Foo and generate a parser that can
parse Foo sources into data (abstract syntax trees).
Parsing a language called "Foo"
with the Pegex toolset.
.-----------------------.
.--------------------. | Pegex::Compiler |
| Foo Language | |-----------------------| Serialize
|--------------------|----->| Pegex::Grammar::Pegex |---------.
| Pegex grammar text | | Pegex::Receiver | |
'--------------------' '-----------------------' v
...................... | .------.
| | | compile() | YAML |
|foo:: <verb> <noun> | v '------'
|verb: /Hello/ | .--------------------. .------.
|noun: /world/ | | Foo grammar tree | | JSON |
| | '--------------------' '------'
...................... | .------.
| | Perl |
v '------'
.---------------------. .--------.
| Pegex::Grammar::Foo | | Python |
|---------------------| '--------'
| Pegex::Parser | .-----.
| Pegex::AST::Foo | | etc |
.-----------------. '---------------------' '-----'
| Foo Language | |
|-----------------|------------------->| parse()
| Foo source text | v
'-----------------' .----------------------.
................... | Parsed Foo Data Tree |
|Hello world | '----------------------'
................... ........................
|- verb: Hello |
|- noun: world |
........................
=head1 FYI
Pegex is self-hosting. This means that the Pegex grammar language syntax is
defined by a Pegex grammar! This is important because (just like any Pegex
based language) it makes it easier to port to new programming languages. You
can find the Pegex grammar for Pegex grammars here:
L<http://github.com/ingydotnet/pegex-pgx/>.
Pegex was originally inspired by Perl 6 Rules. It also takes ideas from Damian
Conway's Perl 5 module, L<Regexp::Grammars>. Pegex tries to take the best
ideas from these great works, and make them work in as many languages as
possible. That's Acmeism.
=head1 SELF COMPILATION TRICKS
You can have some fun using Pegex to compile itself. First get the Pegex
grammar repo:
git clone git://github.com/ingydotnet/pegex-pgx.git
cd pegex-pgx
Then parse and dump the Pegex grammar with Pegex:
perl -MXXX -MPegex -e 'XXX pegex("pegex.pgx")->parse("pegex.pgx")'
For a different view of the data tree, try:
perl -MXXX -MPegex -e 'XXX pegex("pegex.pgx", {wrap => 0})->parse("pegex.pgx")'
Finally to emulate the Pegex compiler do this:
perl -MXXX -MPegex -e 'XXX pegex("pegex.pgx", {receiver => "Pegex::Pegex::AST"})->parse("pegex.pgx")'
This specifies a "receiving" class that can shape the results into something
useful. Indeed, this is the exact guts of L<Pegex::Grammar::Pegex>.
=head1 A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE
L<TestML> is a new Acmeist unit test language. It is perfect for software that
needs to run equivalently in more than one language. In fact, Pegex itself is
tested with TestML!!
TestML has a language specification grammar:
http://www.testml.org/specification/language/
The Perl6 implementation of TestML uses this grammar in:
https://github.com/ingydotnet/testml-pm6/blob/master/lib/TestML/Parser/Grammar.pm
All other implementations of TestML use this Pegex grammar:
https://github.com/ingydotnet/testml-pgx/blob/master/testml.pgx
In Perl 5, Pegex::Compiler is used to compile the grammar into this simple
data structure (shown in YAML):
https://github.com/ingydotnet/testml-pgx/blob/master/testml.pgx.yaml
The grammar can also be precompiled to JSON:
https://github.com/ingydotnet/testml-pgx/blob/master/testml.pgx.json
Pegex::Compiler further compiles this into a Perl 5 only grammar tree, which
becomes this module:
https://github.com/ingydotnet/testml-pm/blob/master/lib/TestML/Grammar.pm
TestML::Parser::Grammar is a subclass of Pegex::Grammar. It can be used to
parse TestML files. TestML::Parser calls the C<parse()> method of the grammar
with a TestML::AST object that receives callbacks when various rules match,
and uses the information to build a TestML::Document object.
Thus TestML is an Acmeist language written in Pegex. It can be easily ported
to every language where Pegex exists. In fact, it must be ported to those
languages in order to test the new Pegex implementation!
=head1 SEE ALSO
=over
=item *
L<Pegex::Manual>
=item *
L<Pegex::Grammar>
=item *
L<Pegex::Regex>
=item *
L<http://github.com/ingydotnet/pegex-pm>
=item *
L<irc.freenode.net#pegex>
=back
=head1 AUTHOR
Ingy döt Net <ingy@cpan.org>
=head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2012. Ingy döt Net.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html
=cut