clarsec is an attempt to port haskell parsec to clojure
This library is inspired on http://kotka.de/projects/clojure/parser.html and uses the Meikel Brandmeyer's "monad" library (slightly adapted), as I didn't understand how the clojure contrib monad library works.
there is an example parser which I ported straight from a Haskell Parsec code.
Basically, you should be able to write the examples on http://kotka.de/projects/clojure/parser.html.
The library comes with a small number of basic combinators. I hope it will be useful.
forward references are a mess. I tried to maintain the DSL as simple as possible. Imagine that "structureDef" and "comma" are two already existing parsers, and "brackets" and "sepBy" are two combinators. I want to be able to write it like this:
(def structure (brackets (sepBy structureDef comma)))
however, clojures 'def' binding is strict and all the referenced vars have to be already defined, otherwise you get:
Var example/structureDef is unbound.
I'm a clojure newbie, so I don't know exactly how to avoid this. I know only of two workarounds:
- use functions:
(defn structure [] (brackets (sepBy (structureDef) (comma)))) - use delay:
(def structure (delay (brackets (sepBy structureDef comma))))
I opted for delay, as it allowed me to avoid all those spurious parens, and retain the illusion of a parser DSL, and put the "delay" only where needed. (or everywhere
with a "defblabla" macro).
Unfortunately this required a small patch to Brandmeyer's monad library.
lein jar