Java C Parser/Preprocessor

[student08]

Hi I'm currently looking for a C parser/preprocessor that's written in
Java (since I plan to be using the Prefuse visualisation toolkit) for
a student project.

I looked at ANTLR but the gcc translation framework grammar that's
available on its website is fairly dated and I can't seem to find any
outside projects which use it and can verify its reliability. Also
it's only works with already preprocessed C and may not be able to
emit comments.

Does anyone know any good C parser and preprocessor tools written in
Java? Hopefully it is able to use an abstract syntax tree so that I
can perform my own code transformations easily.

 

[Mark Space]

Hi I'm currently looking for a C parser/preprocessor that's written in
Java (since I plan to be using the Prefuse visualisation toolkit) for
a student project.

Have you looked at these? (First or second link when I Google for "java
parser").

<http://java-source.net/open-source/parser-generators>

 

[Roedy Green]

Does anyone know any good C parser and preprocessor tools written in
Java? Hopefully it is able to use an abstract syntax tree so that I
can perform my own code transformations easily.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/parser.html

 

[Vlad Ciubotariu]

I'm pretty sure javacc has a C parser in its repository.

 

[student08]

Hi first off thanks for the replies all.

I've looked at JavaCC however its only has one rudimentary C grammar
in its repository which can't handle preprocessed code. It seems to be
the same for most of the others including Coco so I'm looking into
Rats! in more detail and hopefully it will be the exception.

However if anyone's worked with a Java parser which can handle C
please feel free to mention it.

Thanks

 

[EJP]

You won't find a C preprocessor written with a parser-generation tool.
It's not that kind of problem.

 

[Larry A Barowski]

You won't find a C preprocessor written with a parser-generation tool.
It's not that kind of problem.

It is that kind of problem. Most C preprocessors are written
using a well-divided lexer and parser (the latest GNU C
preprocessor, for example). I'm sure you can find some that
use parser-generators for the parse, though most are probably
recursive-descent. You can write a C preprocessor as more
of a lexer + state machine, but you would still want to use a
parser for the constant integer expression evaluation.

To the OP (the first post is missing from my news server, so
I can't respond to it):

What is the purpose of your code transformations? Will you
perform transformations at the preprocessor-level, so that
you need a preprocessor syntax tree? Is your goal to modify
the original source code?

 

[student08]

It is that kind of problem. Most C preprocessors are written
using a well-divided lexer and parser (the latest GNU C
preprocessor, for example). I'm sure you can find some that
use parser-generators for the parse, though most are probably
recursive-descent. You can write a C preprocessor as more
of a lexer + state machine, but you would still want to use a
parser for the constant integer expression evaluation.

To the OP (the first post is missing from my news server, so
I can't respond to it):

What is the purpose of your code transformations? Will you
perform transformations at the preprocessor-level, so that
you need a preprocessor syntax tree? Is your goal to modify
the original source code?

Hi Larry thanks for the reply. My goal is to be able to highlight
possible refactorings in the source code to the user and then if the
user approves of the refactorings, to perform it by modifying the
original source code.

 

[Yunzhong]

Larry, which version of GNU C preprocessor did you check that used a
parser generator?

 

[Roedy Green]

However if anyone's worked with a Java parser which can handle C
please feel free to mention it.

There are some preprocessors written in Java, but not C style. Since
there are so many C-style preprocessors written in C, you'd think
someone would want to revamp the aged syntax if they were to write a
new one in Java.

 

[Roedy Green]

Hi I'm currently looking for a C parser/preprocessor that's written in
Java (since I plan to be using the Prefuse visualisation toolkit) for
a student project.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/preprocessor.html
for a list of preprocessors associated with Java. Perhaps one might
serve as a base.

 

[Gordon Beaton]

Does that run afoul of the GPL?

Conditions for using Bison:

"The distribution terms for Bison-generated parsers permit using the
parsers in nonfree programs."

http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_mono/bison.html#Conditions

/gordon

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