Parsing with Perl 6 Regexes and Grammars
This book is 65% complete
Last updated on 2017-11-28
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.
Table of Contents
- 1. This Book Will Be Published By Apress
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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?
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3. Getting Started with Perl 6
- 3.1 Installing Rakudo Perl 6
- 3.2 Using Rakudo Perl 6
- 3.3 Summary
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
About the Author
Moritz Lenz is a software engineer and architect.
In the Perl community, he is well known for his contributions to the Perl 6 programming language, the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler, related test suite, infrastructure and tools.
At his employer, noris network AG, he introduced Continuous Delivery for many in-house developed applications, and now wants to share his experience with the wider world.
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