The first thing I learned about ANTLR: the best place to start is with Terence Parr’s books.
I ordered them online last week, and they finally came in the mail on Monday. I was in bed when there was a knock at the door – I knew it was the mail man with my ANTLR books. I couldn’t kick my blankets off fast enough.
I said I would start with Parr’s second book in my Initial Project Plan. One of the problems I listed in my project plan is my learning style. I planned to only read the chapters of the book I need. So here’s the problem:
The book lists 4 language application categories:
- Readers – builds a data struct from input streams
- Generators – walks an internal data struct & emits output
- Translators – a combined reader & generator
- Interpreters – reads, decodes, executes instructions
What I need to write is a translator(#3). Which means I need to write a generator(#2), which won’t work without the internal data structure created by the reader(#1). Since I have no prior language application experience, I’ll be reading most of this book – starting at the front and going from there.
When I started with the front of all fronts – the Preface – I was still looking for the ANTLR community. Where are they besides the mailing lists and their wiki? Turns out this book has a little forum. Only 12 topics and 32 posts, but the last post was written 10 hours ago and some of those topics have 400, 600, 900 + views. Good to know it’s alive.
The preface also mentioned ANTLR’s support page. Which I’ve visited before, but I must have missed almost EVERYTHING they had written on there. It’s like finding gold:
- ANTLR INTEREST ARCHIVES – it’s searchable!
- Official ANTLR IRC: #antlr on irc.oftc.net
- ANTLR’s Forum
- There’s also StringTemplate Community Support – I don’t know if I’ll be needing that yet, but at least I know it’s there.
I’ll be back after I read a few chapters.
Toodle-loo for now!
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