Does C# have (direct) flex/yacc port? Or what lexer/parser people use for C#?

c# .net parsing lexer
prosseek picture prosseek · Jun 4, 2010 · Viewed 16k times · Source

I might be wrong, but it looks like that there's no direct flex/bison (lex/yacc) port for C#/.NET so far.

For LALR parser, I found GPPG/GPLEX, and for LL parser, there is the famous ANTLR. But, I want to reuse my flex/bison grammar as much as possible.

  • Is there any direct port of flex/bison for C#?
  • What lexer/parser people normally use for C#? Is there any reason for that choice?

Answer

Andre Artus picture Andre Artus · Jun 4, 2010

I think your best bet is going to be GPLEX/GPPG, it's the closest thing to Yacc/Lex for C# that I know of, and you will need to port your actions into C# regardless.

I have also used Coco/R, ANTLR (of course), and have more recently played with Irony.net, fslex/fsyacc (F#), and fparsec (F#).

Here are some links

Fparsec

Coco/R

Irony.net

Gardens Point Parser Generator

Gardens Point Lex

I don't have a technical reason for using one versus another: I play around with these mostly for fun. I did create some DSLs for work projects a good number of years ago, but I hand rolled the scanners/parsers on those (back then I was working mostly in Pascal, and I found that TP Lex/Yacc did not suit my tastes, and the DSLs were simple enough). I have found that FParsec and Irony suit my tastes the best, as I find the other somewhat "messy" (lacking in elegance).

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