Ideas for Bison

[Akim Demaille]

Hi all,

here is the idea I'm submitting this year for Bison.  Tags:
C++, parser.

Cheers!

<h4>Full support of GLR in C++</h4>

<p>
Bison may generate different types of parsers, for different target
languages.  The traditional parser types (LR, LALR, etc.) are extremely
efficient, but fail to accept some tricky grammars.  GLR, on the other
hand, accepts any kind of context-free grammar, even ambiguous ones.
It proves extremely useful to deal with grammars that exhibit
"local nondeterminism".
</p>

<p>
Bison can generate parsers in C, C++, and Java.  C++ has specific
constraints that prevent Bison to use the traditional union to store
the various semantic types.  The regular LR parser in C++ is already
equipped with a sane alternative: variants.  However, as of today,
there is no GLR generator for C++, and therefore, no support for
variants in GLR.  </p>

<p>
The project aims at providing a complete implementation of GLR in
C++, with support for variants.  It requires ease with C++(98),
and a clear understanding of what a shift-reduce parser is.
</p>

<strong>Mentor</strong>: <a href="mailto:address@hidden";>Akim Demaille</a>