An Introduction To Antlr And Domain-Specific Languages

Terence Parr, University of San Francisco

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Most people think of grammars and parser generators in terms of building compilers, yet the number of language recognition and translation tasks dwarfs the number of compilers being built. This lecture illustrates the wide applicability of parser generators to domain specific languages and other recognition and translation tasks. ANTLR codifies what programmers do naturally by hand, thereby placing the power of formal languages in the hands of the average programmer. This lecture is a practical introduction to ANTLR and uses numerous examples to demonstrate the power of simple grammars and their use in a variety of common tasks.