Building Parsers with Java? [With CD]

By Steven John Metsker

Book Overview

Parser building is a powerful programming technique that opens a world of opportunity for designing how users interact with applications. By creating mini-languages, you can precisely address the requirements of your application development domain. Writing your own parsers empowers you to access a database more effectively than SQL to efficiently control the movement of an order through its workflow, to command the actions of a robot, and to control access privileges to transactions in a system. The repertoire of todays professional programmer should include the know-how to create custom languages. Building Parsers with Java shows how to create parsers that recognize custom programming languages. This book and its accompanying CD provide an in-depth explanation and clearly written tutorial on writing parsers, following the Interpreter Design Pattern. An easy-to-follow demonstration on how to apply parsers to vital development tasks is included, using more than a hundred short examples, numerous UML diagrams, and a pure Java parser toolkit to illustrate key points. You will learn *How to design, code, and test a working parser *How to create a parser to read a data language, and how This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201719622
• ISBN13: 9780201719628
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Good practical book on building parsers

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...

A superb book that will let you write your own language parsers in just a few days

One of the best programming related books I have found. It certainly is one of the most original and most enjoyable reading materials I have found. And having read a lot, that says something :) Steven provides the reader a strong Java framework for building your own language parsers, and contrary to some reviews I've found, he's right to do so, since he introduces a very complex issue simplifying it to the point that in just...

Best example of design patterns in a complex system

I purchased this book for two reasons.1. My compiler class in college was the only CS class I took that really kicked my butt in the code. Maybe because it was the first application I had to write in school and live with it for a whole semester? Always felt guilty about my 'lack' of knowledge in this area and wanted to do something about it.2. I was hitting the wall with how far I could push XML at work. I had been converting...

Includes more than three hundred Java classes

In Building Parsers With JAVA, computer language expert Steven Metsker shows how to create parsers that recognize custom programming languages. Readers will learn how to design, code and test a working parser; how to create a parser to read data language; how to crate a new computer language; how to translate the design of language into code; how to accept an arithmetic formula and compute its result; how to build parsers...

John Vlissides Foreword is right on the money

The foreword says "Traditional parsing tools are overkill at best, antiquated and unusable at worst. The result? Ad hoc has become the parsing approach of choice.But when I read this book, I had a change of heart."So did I. I came across this book (a week and a half ago) when I was just about to begin designing a small language to embed in an application. I was loathing the task to come because the parser development tools...