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A predictive parser is a recursive descent parser that does not require backtracking. [3] Predictive parsing is possible only for the class of LL( k ) grammars, which are the context-free grammars for which there exists some positive integer k that allows a recursive descent parser to decide which production to use by examining only the next k ...
Since Packrat is a recursive descent parser, it cannot handle left recursion directly. [5] During the early stages of development, it was found that a production that is left-recursive can be transformed into a right-recursive production. [6] This modification significantly simplifies the task of a Packrat parser.
A formal grammar that contains left recursion cannot be parsed by a naive recursive descent parser unless they are converted to a weakly equivalent right-recursive form. . However, recent research demonstrates that it is possible to accommodate left-recursive grammars (along with all other forms of general CFGs) in a more sophisticated top-down parser by use of curta
(For example, upon encountering a variable declaration, user-written code could save the name and type of the variable into an external data structure, so that these could be checked against later variable references detected by the parser.)
In computer programming, a parser combinator is a higher-order function that accepts several parsers as input and returns a new parser as its output. In this context, a parser is a function accepting strings as input and returning some structure as output, typically a parse tree or a set of indices representing locations in the string where parsing stopped successfully.
A TDPL grammar can be viewed as an extremely minimalistic formal representation of a recursive descent parser, in which each of the nonterminals schematically represents a parsing function. Each of these nonterminal-functions takes as its input argument a string to be recognized, and yields one of two possible outcomes:
Common examples include algorithms on trees, and recursive descent parsers. As with direct recursion, tail call optimization is necessary if the recursion depth is large or unbounded, such as using mutual recursion for multitasking. Note that tail call optimization in general (when the function called is not the same as the original function ...
LL grammars can alternatively be characterized as precisely those that can be parsed by a predictive parser – a recursive descent parser without backtracking – and these can be readily written by hand. This article is about the formal properties of LL grammars; for parsing, see LL parser or recursive descent parser.