orP -- parsing alternatives

Synopsis

• Usage:

  r = orP(p,q,...)

• Inputs:
  • (p,q,...), a sequence of parsers (of type Parser)
• Outputs:
  • r, a parser, a parser that accepts any sequence of tokens acceptable to one of the parsers p,q,...

Description

An abbreviation for orP(p,q) is p|q.

In case of ambiguity, the value returned by the left-most accepting parser is provided.

If one of the arguments is a string then constParser is used to convert it into a parser.

In an efficient grammar, the first token presented to r will be acceptable to at most one of the input parsers, and then the parser returned by r will be the parser returned by the single accepting input parser.

i1 : (constParser "abc" | constParser "def" : charAnalyzer) "abc"

o1 = abc

i2 : (constParser "abc" | constParser "def" : charAnalyzer) "def"

o2 = def

i3 : (constParser "abc" | "def" : charAnalyzer) "def"

o3 = def

See also

• constParser -- produce a parser that accepts a fixed string, one character at a time
• charAnalyzer -- a lexical analyzer that provides characters from a string one at a time
• Parser : Analyzer -- combine a parser with a lexical analyzer to make a complete system