Re: [cdt-dev] Question about parser

["Alain Magloire" <alain@xxxxxxx>]

> cdt-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 10/03/2004 10:14:32 PM:
> 
> > Current implementation of parser does not provide complete model. For 
> > example, parser processes statements and resolves/collects references, 
> > reports about syntax problems. But it does not collect information about 
> 
> > statements, there are no corresponding AST classes, and requester 
> > interface doesn't have callback methods for statements processing, 
> > aren't there?. 
> 
> Correct, there have been numerous threads on cdt-dev & cdt-core-dev 
> concerning this.
> Doug is defining a new set of AST interfaces that we shall start to 
> migrate our
> parsing framework towards in the AST2 branch.  Also, Jason Brown has been 
> doing his
> own exploration in this area in his environment.  It should not be a 
> surprise that 
> the current parser does not provide statement-level granularity in the 
> AST.
> 
> > I realize well that this functionality is not required 
> > for the tasks that use parser service now. Working on code formatter 
> > implementation I tried where it was possible to subclass parser classes 
> > in order to get desired behavior. So far it did not required essential 
> > efforts. 
> 
> I still do not understand how you get this to work purely through
> subclassing and substitution.  What parse mode do you use?  How do you 
> rewrite the source?
> 
> > In this case I could also follow the same way. Before doing 
> > that, I just was wandering about plans of parser development. I found 
> > out in new ast2 branch packages named "dom" (now empty). 
> 
> "dom" is from CDT 1.1.  Everything new is also included in the "parser"
> source folder.
> 
> > If we should 
> > expect to see this stuff soon, it would be a wast of time to torture 
> > existing parser in order to compel it to do the things it cannot do now. 
> 
> 
> To be honest, I was suprised to hear that you were trying to use the 
> parser to do source code formatting.  In previous conference calls it was 
> suggested (by Rockwell Collins I believe) that the short-term solution 
> for this would be to integrate external code formatters/pretty printers 
> into 
> a framework. 
> 
> We do not plan to merge AST2 back into the HEAD until we have migrated as 
> many of
> our clients as possible to how the parsing framework is supposed to work. 
> Our focus
> now is on restructuring the architecture, and this will take some time 
> (most likely
> towards the end of the year). 
> 

I think, this issue was clarify in a previous posting (by Alex).

Current:
CDT-2.1 will(hopefully) have a framework that will allow folks/ISV to plugin any formatters.
Core and part of the UI is in the head .. i.e the C Editor will try
create the CodeFormatter/ToolFactory.

Future(not in the plan):
Alex is also exploring different avenues for a pure Java C/C++ formatter.
One of the avenue, I'm guessing 8-), is to use the AST(2).