[DFDL-WG] DFDL's approach vs tradition parser-generators

[Garriss Jr., James P.]

4 different people responded to my request for information, and all 4 returned very different answers.  This surprises me.  Ordinarily such a response would indicate to me that the responders don’t really understand the subject well, but that’s highly unlikely in this case, given who responded.  So what does that indicate?  Perhaps it indicates that it’s difficult to explain the purpose of DFDL, especially when trying to differentiate it from traditional solutions.  If the WG wants to promote DFDL as a viable alternative for generating parsers, this needs to be made crystal clear.  It should probably be included on the OGF website and the Wikipedia page as well.

Thanks to all who responded!

From: dfdl-wg-bounces at ogf.org [mailto:dfdl-wg-bounces at ogf.org] On Behalf Of Tim Kimber
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 4:50 AM
To: "dfdl-wg at ogf.org"@uk.ibm.com
Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] DFDL's approach vs tradition parser-generators

Traditional parser-generators and DFDL both describe a formal language.

Tools like Yacc/Bison/Antlr/JavaCC use BNF or EBNF to describe how to
a) extract tokens from the data stream
b) create an AST from the tokens
The language is explicit and the tree structure of the AST is implicit.

DFDL uses XML Schema to describe the tree structure of the AST, and uses XSD annotations to describe the physical representations of the logical elements.
The tree structure is explicit but the language rules are implicit.

regards,

Tim Kimber, DFDL Team,
Hursley, UK
Internet:  kimbert at uk.ibm.com<mailto:kimbert at uk.ibm.com>
Tel. 01962-816742
Internal tel. 37246742




From:        "Garriss Jr., James P." <jgarriss at mitre.org<mailto:jgarriss at mitre.org>>
To:        "dfdl-wg at ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg at ogf.org>" <dfdl-wg at ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg at ogf.org>>,
Date:        21/11/2013 18:21
Subject:        [DFDL-WG] DFDL's approach vs tradition parser-generators
Sent by:        dfdl-wg-bounces at ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg-bounces at ogf.org>
________________________________



Traditional parser-generators and DFDL generate parsers.  At a high level, how would you summarize the difference in approaches between these two?

TIA


“You’re only paranoid if they’re not out to get you.” (JD)
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