Parsing with Perl 6 Regexes and Grammars
Parsing with Perl 6 Regexes and Grammars
A Recursive Descent into Parsing
About the Book
As humans, we are incredibly good at finding patterns. So we assume that as programmers, we must be good at using patterns to parse text. But it's a skill that needs to be learned. This book aims to teach you how to write good regexes and parsers with Perl 6.
It starts from the very basics of regular expressions, and then explores how they integrate with regular Perl 6 code. The result of a successful regex match is a Match object, which contains all the useful information for extracting data, so that is the next topic.
Then we discuss how regexes work under the hood, and how Perl 6 uses a mixture of finite state machines and backtracking to do its magic. With this understanding, we can explore common techniques for constructing regexes and exploring the data under scrutiny.
So far, the regexes can only match relatively simple formats. But with reusable named regexes and grammars, the sky is the limit. Figuratively, of course. We discuss techniques for code reuse in grammars, and how to write parser for more involved data formats.
One of my favorite topics is the generation of good error messages for when the input can't be parsed by a grammar, so there will be a separate chapter on that.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- 1. This Book Will Be Published By Apress
-
2. What are Regexes and Grammars?
- 2.1 Use Cases
- 2.2 Regexes or Regular Expressions?
- 2.3 What’s So Special about Perl 6 Regexes?
-
3. Getting Started with Perl 6
- 3.1 Installing Rakudo Perl 6
- 3.2 Using Rakudo Perl 6
- 3.3 Summary
-
4. Building Blocks of Regexes
- 4.1 Literals
- 4.2 Meta Characters vs. Literals
- 4.3 Anchors
- 4.4 Pre-Defined Character Classes
- 4.5 Quantifiers
- 4.6 Disjunction
- 4.7 Conjunction
- 4.8 Zero-Width Assertions
- 4.9 Summary
-
5. Regexes and Perl 6 Code
- 5.1 Smart-Matching
- 5.2 Modifiers and Quote Forms
- 5.3 Comb and Split
- 5.4 Substitution
- 5.5 Crossing the Code and Regex Boundary
- 5.6 Summary
-
6. Extracting Data from Regex Matches
- 6.1 Positional Captures
- 6.2 The Match Object
- 6.3 Named Captures
- 6.4 Backreferences
- 6.5 Match Objects Revisited
- 6.6 Summary
-
7. Regex Mechanics
- 7.1 Matching with State Machines
- 7.2 Regex Control Flow
- 7.3 Backtracking
- 7.4 Why Would You Want to Avoid Backtracking?
- 7.5 Frugal Quantifiers and Backtracking
- 7.6 Longest Token Matching
- 7.7 Summary
-
8. Regex Techniques
- 8.1 Know your Data Format
- 8.2 Think about Invalid Inputs
- 8.3 Use Anchors
- 8.4 Matching Quoted Strings
- 8.5 Testing Regexes
- 8.6 Summary
-
9. Reusing and Composing Regexes
- 9.1 Named Regexes
- 9.2 Whitespace
- 9.3 Grammars
- 9.4 Code Reuse with Grammars
- 9.5 Proto Regexes
- 9.6 Summary
-
10. Parsing With Grammars
- 10.1 Understanding Grammars
- 10.2 Starting Simple
- 10.3 Assembling Complete Grammars
- 10.4 Parsing Whitespace and Comments
- 10.5 Keeping State
- 10.6 Summary
-
11. Extracting Data From Matches
- 11.1 Action Objects
- 11.2 Building ASTs with Action Objects
- 11.3 Keeping State in Action Objects
- 11.4 Summary
- 12. Generating Good Error Messages
- 13. Acknowledgements
- Notes
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$10,909,613writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
Learning Algorithms Through Programming and Puzzle Solving
Alexander S. Kulikov and Pavel PevznerThis book powers our MicroMasters program on edX and specialization on Coursera, one of the ten most popular computer science courses on Coursera. Over half a million students have tried to solve many programming challenges and algorithmic puzzles described in this book. We invite you to join them! See the webpage of the book for more details.
- #2
入門 日本語自然言語処理
Masato Hagiwara and Paul O'Leary McCann日本語テキストを処理したい全てのプログラマ・エンジニアの方へ。分かち書きなどの基本から、自然言語生成などの最新の話題までをカバー。動かして学べるコードや、参照文献も付いています。言語学や機械学習の知識が無くても問題ありません。
- #3
Functional Programming Made Easier
Charles ScalfaniA Functional Programming book from beginner to advanced without skipping a single step along the way.
In my 40 years of programming, I've felt that programming books always let me down, especially Functional Programming books. So, I wrote the book I wish I had 5 years ago.
Functional Programming will never be easy, but it can be easier.
- #4
Cloud Strategy
Gregor Hohpe“Strategy is the difference between making a wish and making it come true.” A successful migration to the cloud can transform your organization, but it shouldn’t be driven by wishes. This book tells you how to develop a sound strategy guided by frameworks and decision models without being overly abstract nor getting lost in product details.
- #5
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #6
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
- #7
Scrum Product Ownership - Navigating the Forest AND the Trees, 3'rd Edition
Robert GalenIn 2009, I published Scrum Product Ownership - Ed. 1. Then the 2'nd Ed. in 2013. This is the 3'rd edition, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the original book. It's evolved from a beginners guide to be a more balanced reference for beginners, practitioner, and expert Product Owners.
- #8
Functional event-driven architecture: Powered by Scala 3
Gabriel VolpeExplore the event-driven architecture (EDA) in a purely functional way, mainly powered by Fs2 streams in Scala 3!
Leverage your functional programming skills by designing and writing stateless microservices that scale, powered by stateful message brokers.
- #9
Introducing EventStorming
Alberto BrandoliniThe deepest tutorial and explanation about EventStorming, straight from the inventor.
- #10
Agile Testing Condensed Japanese Edition
Yuya Kazama, Janet Gregory, and Lisa CrispinJanet GregoryとLisa Crispinによる2019年9月発行の書籍『Agile Testing Condensed』の日本語翻訳版です。アジャイルにおいてどのような考えでテストを行うべきなのか簡潔に書かれています！
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
The Indie Python Extravaganza
5 Books
The Indie Python Extravaganza! A collection of books that will help you to improve your knowledge of the Python programming language one page at a time. Join four indie authors in a journey from the basics of Python to the structure of production-ready systems, going through the core features of the language, some intermediate projects and a... - #3
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #4
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #6
Abandon Your Job - Leaving the Rat Race with Python
8 Books
Now, get all the great Python and Freelancing books from finxter.com in one single bundle!Coffee Break Python - All Python BasicsCoffee Break Python Workbook - Practice the basics of PythonCoffee Break Python Mastery Workouts - Practice advanced Python conceptsCoffee Break Python Slicing - All about SlicingCoffee Break Python NumPy - Get started... - #7
10 Books Bundle - A New Career in Tech 🚀
10 Books
Do you want to create yourself a new and profitable skillset - in one year or less? Do you want to position yourself on the right side of change finally? Do you want to work from home and set your own work schedule while choosing fun and interesting coding projects? Software developers and freelance developersearn six figuresin the US, according... - #8
The Python Craftsman
3 Books
The Python Craftsman series comprises The Python Apprentice, The Python Journeyman, and The Python Master. The first book is primarily suitable for for programmers with some experience of programming in another language. If you don't have any experience with programming this book may be a bit daunting. You'll be learning not just a programming... - #10
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible...
