Building Parsers With Java(TM) by
Steven John Metsker
Good Practical Book On Building Parsers
(Pearson Education) An in-depth explanation of how to create parsers that
recognize custom programming languages. The CD-ROM contains all of
the examples from the text, the parser toolkit, and other helpful materials.
System requirements not listed. Softcover. DLC: Java (Computer program
language).
Personal Review: Building Parsers With Java(TM) by Steven
John Metsker
This book does not assume that you understand compilers or
programming language theory. However, the beauty and eloquence of
what the book is trying to teach you will be far clearer if you do understand
these disciplines. This book teaches you how to build nondeterministic
recursive-descent parsers. If you are interested in other kinds of parsers,
then you need to consult another source. The classic source on these

other kinds of parsers is "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by
Aho, also known as "The Dragon Book".
This book explains how to write parsers for new computer languages that
you create. Each chapter focuses on either background, techniques, or
applications. A chart at the beginning of chapter one shows you which
chapter focuses on each topic. Each chapter builds on the material
presented in preceding chapters, so you should probably proceed through
this book linearly. I review this book in the context of the table of contents:
1. Introduction - Just performs an overview of the book.
2. The Elements of a Parser - Explains what a parser is, introduces the
building blocks of applied parsers, and shows how to compose new
parsers from existing ones.
3. Building a Parser - Explains the steps in designing and coding a parser.
4. Testing a Parser - How to test a new language's features and also how
to use random testing to detect ambiguity and other problems.
5. Parsing Data Languages - Shows how to create a parser that reads the
elements of a data language. A data language is a set of strings that
describe objects following a local convention.
6. Transforming a Grammar - How to ensure the correct behavior of
operators in a language and how to avoid looping in a parser, which can
follow from loops in a grammar.
7. Parsing Arithmetic - This chapter develops an arithmetic parser.
Arithmetic usually appears as part of a larger language.
8. Parsing Regular Expressions - develops a regular expression parser. A
regular expression is a string that uses symbols to describe a pattern of
characters.
9. Advanced Tokenizing - Describes the tokenizers that are part of the
Java programming language as well as the customizable tokenizer of this
particular book. Tokenizing a string means breaking the string into logical
nuggets so that you can define your parser in terms of these nuggets
rather than individual characters.
10. Matching Mechanics - Explains how the fundamental types of parsers
in this book match text.
11. Extending the Parser Toolkit - How to extend a parser toolkit which
includes introducing new types of terminals or completely different parser
types.
12. Engines - Introduces a logic engine, which is a piece of software that is
able to return objects and groups of objects in response to a logical query.
13. Logic Programming - Shows how to program with facts and rules.
14. Parsing a Logic Language - How to construct a parser for a logic
language. It shows how to build a parser for the Logikus programming
language that was introduced in the previous chapter.
15. Parsing a Query Language - Constructs a parser for a query language.
A query language parser translates textual queries into calls to an engine.
The engine proves the query against a source of rules and data and
returns successful proofs as the result of the query.

16. Parsing an Imperative Language - Shows how to create a parser for
imperative languages. An imperative language parser translates a textual
script into a composition of commands that direct a sequence of actions.
17. Directions - Points out areas for further reading and programming.
I used this book to create a parser for a visual language, and I found the
instructions in this book very complete and helpful. I would recommend the
following books if you are interested in getting deeper into the theory
behind this book - "Programming Language Pragmatics" and also
"Introduction to the Theory of Computation" by Sipser.
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