Parser generation in Perl: crafting an AnTLR back-end

Abstract

Completely convinced of the benefits of Perl for the implementation of language processors and after doing a deep review of the state of the art on parser generation in Perl, we have identified a clear need for a powerful tool that accepts attribute grammars and builds compilers in Perl. The ob jective of this paper is to present a solution based on the developing of a back-end for ANTLR to generate attribute based language processors in Perl, to overcome the lack of this kind tools described in the preliminary study referred above. To achieve the intended ob jective, the parser generator tool ANTLR was studied in detail to understand its components and to plan the best strategies to perform the necessary retargeting of its back-end. In this process, the Java compilers generated by ANTLR were analysed carefully to learn the algorithms adopted and the language resources employed. After that, the general scheme for Perl compiler was sketched. This task has required a comparative study of object-oriented extensions to the standard Perl in order to decide how to provide the basic features available in Java. We also discuss in the paper the performance tests carried out to prove that the generated processors, produced by our new tool, are effcient and provide indeed a reliable and competitive solution.