@kaoscript/parser/README.md

Parse kaoscript files and generate an abstract syntax tree

[@kaoscript/parser](https://github.com/kaoscript/parser)
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Parse kaoscript files and generates an abstract syntax tree.

Documentation available at [kaoscript](https://github.com/kaoscript/kaoscript).

Evolution
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- July-August 2016: since I didn't wanted to handwriting the parser, I've used a **LL(*)** parser. Slow since lot of backtracking.

- August 2016 - May 2017: I've used [Jison](https://zaa.ch/jison/) to generate a **SLR** parser. Faster (10x) but the syntax was getting complex and tricky.

- May 2017: I've tried [chevrotain](https://github.com/SAP/chevrotain) (a fast **LL(4)** parser).

	I didn't choice it because:
	- You have to distinguish ambiguous rules, complexify the syntax
	- You can't switch the tokenizer when parsing

- May 2017 - \*: Handwritten parser. It's basically a **LL(1)** parser with few lookheads.

	Advantages:
	- at least 2x times faster than Jison
	- manageable code
	- better support of space
	- `macro`

License
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[MIT](http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php) © Baptiste Augrain