Does C# have (direct) flex/yacc port? Or what lexer/parser people use for C#?

Question

I might be wrong, but it looks like that there's no direct flex/bison (lex/yacc) port for C#/.NET so far.

For LALR parser, I found GPPG/GPLEX, and for LL parser, there is the famous ANTLR. But, I want to reuse my flex/bison grammar as much as possible.

• Is there any direct port of flex/bison for C#?
• What lexer/parser people normally use for C#? Is there any reason for that choice?

Answer 1

I think your best bet is going to be GPLEX/GPPG, it's the closest thing to Yacc/Lex for C# that I know of, and you will need to port your actions into C# regardless.

I have also used Coco/R, ANTLR (of course), and have more recently played with Irony.net, fslex/fsyacc (F#), and fparsec (F#).

Here are some links

Fparsec

Coco/R

Irony.net

Gardens Point Parser Generator

Gardens Point Lex

I don't have a technical reason for using one versus another: I play around with these mostly for fun. I did create some DSLs for work projects a good number of years ago, but I hand rolled the scanners/parsers on those (back then I was working mostly in Pascal, and I found that TP Lex/Yacc did not suit my tastes, and the DSLs were simple enough). I have found that FParsec and Irony suit my tastes the best, as I find the other somewhat "messy" (lacking in elegance).

Answer 2

Take a look at "Managed babel" extensions, there is quite a classic-style port of lex and yacc.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb165037(VS.80).aspx

Answer 3

ANTLR is a very mature (and awesome) parser/lexer generator. It originally produced Java code, but can now target several languages, including C#.