Please suggest a good text processing project

Question

Hello,

Lately I've realized that one must be good at handling (parsing) text. It may be from as simple as interpreting the HTTP response or reading a settings file (*.ini or *.xml or *.json) to as hard as writing a compiler or regex engine.

I agree that now we have library functions/methods for interpreting popular formats of text. But using functions is making me feel something is missing. I don't know what I'm missing but I'm definitely loosing confidence by using function for everything.

In order to build up some confidence I want to try some text processing in C.

Can anyone suggest some intermediate level but good project? If you can suggest some useful project little more complex is also appreciated.

Answer 1

Not too hard, but you could implement a nice CSV parser?

Answer 2

Beginning but potentially useful projects:

• Given a text file that contains C-style comments (/* ... */), write a processor that strips comments from the file.
  • Extend this to handle nested comments.
• Try parsing a C-style string, handling the backslash commands.

For a more intermediate project, think about a functional domain you're interested in, and try your hand at writing a simple domain-specific language for it. Work on just the front-end part of parsing the language, and tackle small parts of the language at a time.

I think you'll quickly find that, for more advanced text processing, you'll want to start looking at libraries that will help you do the parsing. I think this could lead quite nicely into studies into regexp, lex/yacc, Antlr, and maybe even Haskell/Parsec if you really get into this kind of thing. Whichever way, you won't just be relying on other people's text processors anymore.

Hope this helps!