package CWB::CEQL::Parser; use Carp; use Encode; use warnings; use strict; =head1 NAME CWB::CEQL::Parser - Deterministic Perl parser for simplified query languages =head1 SYNOPSIS ##### DPP grammar in separate module ##### package MyGrammar; use base 'CWB::CEQL::Parser'; sub my_rule { my ($self, $input) = @_; ## body of grammar rule "my_rule" goes here, transforming $input => $output return $output; } sub default { ## default rule will be called if parser is applied to string my ($self, $input) = @_; return $self->Call("my_rule", $input); # recursively call other grammar rules } 1; ##### main program ##### use MyGrammar; our $grammar = new MyGrammar; $result = $grammar->Parse($string); # applies 'default' rule $result = $grammar->Parse($string, "my_rule"); # parse as given constituent =head1 DESCRIPTION B implements a B-driven, B, B parser for extended context-free grammars written in B, called a Beterministic B

erl B

arser (B). This parsing algorithm was designed specifically for automatic translation of simplified, user-friendly query and scripting languages (such as the Bommon Blementary Buery Banguage provided by B) into low-level code (e.g. B syntax). The DPP architecture was motivated by the observation that simplified queries are often very similar in structure to the corresponding low-level queries, and that many authors use cascaded regular expression substitutions to transform one into the other. While such cascades are very easy to write in Perl and perform efficiently, there are two important limitations: it would often be useful (i) to validate and transform recursive structures, and (ii) to restrict a particular transformation to a certain scope. Because of these limitations, incorrect user input -- and sometimes even correct input -- leads to malformed low-level queries. Without an intimate knowledge of the implementation, it is often impossible to guess the true location of the problem from the cryptic error messages generated by the backend processor. Moreover, simplified query languages based on regular expression substitution typically have rather limited expressiveness and flexibility (because the substitutions are applied unconditionally, so symbols cannot have different meanings in different contexts). B aims to overcome these limitations by combining regexp-based matching and substitution with a simple top-down parser for context-free grammars, as well as a shift-reduce-style parser for nested bracketing. Parsing complexity is limited by enforcing a B parsing algorithm: a B (= constituent type, corresponding to the LHS of a traditional CFG rule) may have multiple expansions, but the Perl code implementing the rule has to employ heuristics to choose a single expansion for a given input. If the selected expansion does not match the input string, the entire parsing process fails. Again, this decision was motivated by the observation that, in the case of simplified query languages, it is often very easy to make such deterministic decisions with a regular expression and/or a few lines of Perl code. Each B is implemented as a B (or, more precisely, B). It is invoked by the parser with an input string that is expected to be a constituent of the respective type, and returns its analysis of this constituent. In the typical application of DPP grammars, the return value is a string representing (part of) a low-level query expression, but grammar authors may also decide to return arbitrary data structures. In the B, other grammar rules can be applied to the full input string, a substring, or an arbitrarily transformed substring using the B method. It is also possible to invoke the shift-reduce-type parser with the B method. Both methods return an analysis of the given substring, which can then be integrated with the analyses of other substrings and the parsing performed by the rule body itself. The section on L<"WRITING GRAMMARS"> below explains in detail how to write new DPP grammars from scratch; L<"GRAMMAR RULES"> presents some typical design patterns for grammar rules and lists the methods available to grammar writers; L<"EXTENDING GRAMMARS"> shows how to extend and modify existing grammars (such as the standard CEQL implementation provided by the B module); L<"USER-VISIBLE METHODS"> documents methods aimed at grammar users; L<"METHODS USED BY GRAMMAR AUTHORS"> documents methods for grammar writers; and L<"INTERNAL METHODS"> contains short descriptions of methods used internally by the parser. =head1 WRITING GRAMMARS Technically, a B is a subclass of B, which defines B in the form of Perl B, and inherits parsing and housekeeping methods from the base class. Instantiating such a grammar class yields an independent parser object. By convention, the names of B are written in lowercase with underscores (e.g., C), B are written in mixed case (e.g., C or C), and B are written in mixed case starting with a lowercase letter (e.g., B). If you need to define helper subroutines in your grammar class, their names should begin with an underscore (e.g., C<_escape_regexp>) to avoid confusion with grammar rules. The C rule has to be implemented by all grammars and will be applied to an input string if no constituent type is specified. The basic skeleton of a DPP grammar therefore looks like this: package MyGrammar; use base 'CWB::CEQL::Parser'; sub some_rule { ## body of grammar rule "some_rule" goes here } sub default { ## default rule will be called if parser is applied to string } 1; # usually, a grammar is implemented as a separate module file The user instantiates a parser for this grammar as an object of type B, then calls the B method to analyse an input string (optionally specifying the expected constituent type if it is different from C). B returns an analysis of the input string in the form chosen by the grammar author. In most cases, including the standard B grammar, this will simply be a string containing a low-level query expression. Additional information can be returned by using objects of class B, which behave like strings in most contexts (through operator overloading) but can also be assigned a user-specified type (see the L manpage for details). Alternatively, an arbitrary data structure or object can be returned instead of a string. We will assume in the following that DPP rules always return plain strings. use MyGrammar; our $grammar = new MyGrammar; $result = $grammar->Parse($string); # applies 'default' rule $result = $grammar->Parse($string, "some_rule"); # parse as given constituent type If parsing fails, the B method returns B. A full description of the error and where it occurred can then be obtained with the B and B methods: @lines_of_text = $grammar->ErrorMessage; $html_code = $grammar->HtmlErrorMessage; The latter takes care of encoding special characters as HTML entities where necessary and has been included to simplify the integration of DPP grammars into Web interfaces. Internally, B will invoke appropriate grammar rules. In the first example above, the B method would be called with argument I<$string>; in the second example, B would be called. A typical DPP rule performs the following operations: =over 4 =item 1. examine the input string to decide whether it appears to be a suitable constituent, and to determine its internal structure =item 2. if the test in Step 1 fails, B with a meaningful error message; the B method will catch this exception and report it to the user together with a stack trace of where the error occured =item 3. make a deterministic choice of further processing steps, i.e. the rule commits to a specific analysis of the input string and cannot go back on this decision later on =item 4. apply other grammar rules to substrings of the input using the B method, or split the input into a sequence of tokens passed to the B method (which invokes a shift-reduce-type parser); note that the rule has to make sure that these substrings are constituents of the specified type =item 5. collect the parsing results for subconstituents returned in Step 4, optionally add further parts of the input string, and apply necessary transformations; the resulting string is returned as the rule's transformation of the input (alternatively, an arbitrary data structure can be returned as an analysis of the input string) =back Note that DPP rules always return an analysis or transformation of their input; they are I to return B in order to show that the input string failed to parse. This is a consequence of the deterministic nature of the DPP approach: the caller guarantees that the input is a constituent of the specified type -- anything else is an error condition and causes the rule to B. The two main adavantages of the DPP approach are that (i) the parser does not have to perform any backtracking and (ii) grammar rules do not need to check the return values of subrules invoked with B or B. Sometimes, it may be unavoidable to try different analyses of an input string in sequence. In such exceptional cases, grammar writers can use the B method to perform a simple type of backtracking. B works exactly like B, but will catch any exception raised due to a parse failure and return B in this case. Grammar writers are strongly advised to avoid backtracking whenever possible, though: the deterministic nature of DPP is essential for efficient parsing, and repeated backtracking will greatly increase its computational complexity. DPP grammars can be B in two ways. One possibility is to B by subclassing the grammar, as described in the section on L<"EXTENDING GRAMMARS">. This offers an extremely flexible way of changing grammar behaviour, but requires a detailed knowledge of the B module and the internal design of the grammar. A much easier customisation strategy is for grammar writers to define named B, which can then be set by end users in order to control certain features of the grammar. Typical applications of parameters include the following: =over 4 =item * customisation of corpus attribute names (e.g., a parameter C might specify the appropriate positional attribute for part-of-speech tags, such as C or C) =item * activating or deactivating certain grammar rules (e.g., a parameter C might indicate whether a corpus includes lemmatisation information or not; if it is FALSE, then input strings including lemma constraints will raise parse errors in the respective grammar rules) =item * definition of lookup tables for simplified part-of-speech tags (which have to be adapted to the tagset used by a particular corpus) =back Named parameters have to be defined in the constructor (i.e. the B method) of a grammar by calling the B method, which also sets a default value for the new parameter. They can then be modified or read out at any time using the B and B methods. It is an error to set or read the value of a parameter that hasn't previously been defined. A typical skeletion of a DPP grammar with parameters looks as follows: package MyGrammar; use base 'CWB::CEQL::Parser'; sub new { my $class = shift; my $self = new CWB::CEQL::Parser; $self->NewParam("pos_attribute", "pos"); return bless($self, $class); } sub pos_tag { my ($self, $input) = @_; my $pos_att = $self->GetParam("pos_attribute"); die "'$input' does not appear to be a valid POS tag\n" unless $input =~ /^[A-Z0-9]+$/; return "$pos_att = '$input'"; # CQP constraint for POS tag } # ... other grammar rules, including "default" ... 1; If your grammar does not define its own parameters, it is not necessary to provide an explicit implementation of the B method (unless some other initialisation has to be performed). A user can now apply B to a corpus that stores POS tags in a p-attribute named C: use MyGrammar; our $grammar = new MyGrammar; $grammar->SetParam("pos_attribute", "tag"); $cqp_query = $grammar->Parse($simple_query); The following section presents some typical design patterns for DPP rules and explains the use of B, B and B. Complete function references are found in the sections L<"USER-VISIBLE METHODS"> and L<"METHODS USED BY GRAMMAR AUTHORS">. If you want to see an example of a complete DPP grammar, it is a good idea to take a look at the implementation of the standard CEQL grammar in the B module. Knowledge of this grammar implementation is essential if you want to build your own custom CEQL extensions. =head1 GRAMMAR RULES =head2 Stand-alone rules The simplest DPP rules are stand-alone rules that transform their input string directly without invoking any subrules. These rules typically make use of regular expression substitutions and correspond to one part of the substitution cascade in a traditional implementation of simple query languages. In contrast to such cascades, DPP rules apply only to relevant parts of the input string and cannot accidentally modify other parts of the simple query. The example below transforms a search term with shell-style wildcards (C and C<*>) into a regular expression. Note how the input string is first checked to make sure it does not contain any other metacharacters that might have a special meaning in the generated regular expression, and Bs with an informative error message otherwise. sub wildcard_expression { my ($self, $input) = @_; die "the wildcard expression ''$input'' contains invalid characters\n" unless $input =~ /^[A-Za-z0-9?*-]+$/; my $regexp = $input; $regexp =~ s/\?/./g; $regexp =~ s/\*/.*/g; return $regexp; } Alternatively, the rule could escape all regular expression metacharacters in the input string so they are matched literally by the regular expression. This version of the grammar might use an internal subroutine for translating strings with wildcards safely into regular expressions: sub wildcard_expression { my ($self, $input) = @_; return _wildcard_to_regexp($input); } # note leading underscore for internal subroutine (this is not a method!) sub _wildcard_to_regexp { my $s = quotemeta(shift); $s =~ s/\\[?]/./g; # wildcards will also have been escaped with a backslash $s =~ s/\\([*+])/.$1/g; # works for wildcards * and + return $s; } =head2 Handling parse errors DPP rules should always carry out strict checks to ensure that their input is a well-formed constituent of the required type, and B with a clear and informative error message otherwise. This helps users to locate and correct syntax errors in their input. If errors are caught too late, i.e. in deeply nested subrules, it may be difficult to recognise the true cause of the problem. The error message passed to B should be limited to a single line of text if possible. Always append a newline character (C<\n>) in order to suppress the automatic Perl stack trace, which provides no useful information for grammar users and is likely to be confusing. B will add its own stack trace of subrule invocations so that users can pinpoint the precise location of the syntax error. In order to make this stack trace readable and informative, DPP rules should always be given descriptive names: use C or C rather than C. The B method will automatically convert HTML metacharacters and non-ASCII characters to entities, so it is safe to include the returned HTML code directly in a Web page. Error messages may use basic wiki-style formatting: C<''...''> for typewriter font, C for italics and C<**...**> for bold font. Note that such markup is non-recursive and nested formatting will be ignored. User input should always be enclosed in C<''...''> in error messages so that C and C<**> sequences in the input are not mistaken as formatting instructions. =head2 Calling subrules Most DPP rules divide the input string into one or more subconstituents, similar to the rules of a standard context-free grammar. The main difference is that a DPP rule has to settle on the specific positions and categories of the subconstituents, rather than just listing possible category sequences. Many DPP rules will also remove syntactic operators and delimiters, so that only complex subconstituents are passed to other rules for parsing with the B method. The following example allows users to search for a word form using either a wildcard pattern or a regular expression enclosed in C. The return value is a CQP query. As an additional optimisation, wildcard patterns that do not contain any wildcards are matched literally (which is faster than a regular expression and avoids possible conflicts with regexp metacharacters). sub wordform_pattern { my ($self, $input) = @_; die "the wordform pattern ''$input'' must not contain whitespace or double quotes\n" if $input =~ /\s|\"/; if ($input =~ /^\/(.+)\/$/) { my $regexp = $1; # regular expression query: simply wrap in double quotes return "\"$regexp\""; } else { if ($input =~ /[?*+]/) { my $regexp = $self->Call("wildcard_expression", $input); # call subrule return "\"$regexp\""; } else { return "\"$input\"\%l"; } } } It would probably be a good idea to signal an error if the wordform pattern starts or ends with a slash (C) but is not enclosed in C as a regular expression query. This is likely to be a typing mistake and the user will be confused if the input is silently interpreted as a wildcard expression. =head2 Parsing sequences If the input string consists of a variable number of subconstituents of the same type, the B method provides a convenient alternative to repeated subrule calls. It parses all specified subconstituents, collects the parse results and returns them as a list. The following example processes queries that consist of a sequence wordform patterns separated by blanks (each pattern is either a wildcard expression or regular expression, according to the DPP rules defined above), and returns an equivalent CQP query. sub wordform_sequence { my ($self, $input) = @_; my @items = split " ", $input; my @cqp_patterns = $self->Apply("wordform_pattern", @items); return "@cqp_patterns"; } Recall that the list returned by B does not have to be validated: if any error occurs, the respective subrule will B and abort the complete parse. =head2 The shift-reduce parser for nested bracketing The B method is more than a convenient shorthand for parsing lists of constituents. Its main purpose is to parse nested bracketing structures, which are very common in the syntax of formal languages (examples include arithmetical formulae, regular expressions and most computer programming languages). When parsing the constituents of a list with nested bracketing, two special methods, B and B, are called to mark opening and closing delimiters. Proper nesting will then automatically be verified by the DPP parser. If the syntax allows different types of groups to be mixed, optional names can be passed to the B and B calls in order to ensure that the different group types match properly. The output generated by the items of a bracketing group is collected separately and returned when B is called. From this list, the rule processing the closing delimiter has to construct a single expression for the entire group. Note that the return value of the DPP rule calling B becomes part of the bracketing group output. If this is not desired, the rule must return an empty string (C<"">). Rules can also check whether they are in a nested group with the help of the B method (which returns 0 at the top level). The example below extends our simple query language with regexp-style parenthesised groups, quantifiers (C, C<*>, C<+>) and alternatives (C<|>). In order to simplify the implementation, metacharacters must be separated from wordform patterns and from other metacharacters by blanks; and quantifiers must be attached directly to a closing parenthesis (otherwise, the question mark in C<) ?> would be ambiguous between a quantifier and a wildcard pattern matching a single character). Note that the C rule is practically identical to C above, but has been renamed to reflect its new semantics. sub simple_query { my ($self, $input) = @_; my @items = split " ", $input; my @cqp_tokens = $self->Apply("simple_query_item", @items); return "@cqp_tokens"; } # need to define single rule to parse all items of a list with nested bracketing sub simple_query_item { my ($self, $item) = @_; # opening delimiter: ( if ($item eq "(") { $self->BeginGroup(); return ""; # opening delimiter should not become part of group output } # alternatives separator: | (only within nested group) elsif ($item eq "|") { die "a group of alternatives (|) must be enclosed in parentheses\n" unless $self->NestingLevel > 0; # | metacharacter is not allowed at top level return "|"; } # closing delimiter: ) with optional quantifier elsif ($item =~ /^\)([?*+]?)$/) { my $quantifier = $1; my @cqp_tokens = $self->EndGroup(); die "empty groups '( )' are not allowed\n" unless @cqp_tokens > 0; return "(@cqp_tokens)$quantifier"; } # all other tokens should be wordform patterns else { return $self->Call("wordform_pattern", $item); } } For a complete grammar implementation, don't forget to specify the default rule! sub default { my ($self, $input) = @_; $self->Call("simple_query", $input); } =head2 Structural transformations with the shift-reduce parser The B mechanism does not implement a full-fledged shift-reduce parser. It is well suited for nested bracketing, where structures have explicit start and end markers, but it cannot automatically handle structural transformations that are needed e.g. to parse infix operators. The running example in this subsection will be a grammar for simple arithmetic expressions, consisting of numbers, C<+> and C<-> operators, and parentheses for grouping. For instance, the expression C<42 - (9 - 6)> should be transformed into nested function calls C. One strategy for parsing such expressions is simply to collect all elements within a group, and then perform necessary transformations on the list returned by the B method when a closing delimiter is encountered. This approach is facilitated by the B module, which allows strings returned by grammar rules to be annotated with type information (technically, B objects are complex data structures which can be interpolated like ordinary strings). In our example, strings are either operators (type C) or terms (numbers or parenthesised subexpressions, type C). A flat sequence of terms and operators is translated into nested function calls by the internal function C<_shift_reduce>, which repeatedly collapses a sequence C into a single C. Note that C<_shift_reduce> has to be called in two places in the grammar: (1) at the end of each bracketing group and (2) for the top-level sequence returned by the B method. package Arithmetic; use base 'CWB::CEQL::Parser'; use CWB::CEQL::String; sub default { my ($self, $input) = @_; return $self->Call("arithmetic_expression", $input); } sub arithmetic_expression { my ($self, $input) = @_; $input =~ s/([()+-])/ $1 /g; # insert whitespace around metacharacters $input =~ s/^\s+//; $input =~ s/\s+$//; # strip leading/trailing whitespace my @items = split " ", $input; # split on whitespace into items (numbers, operators, parentheses) my @terms_ops = $self->Apply("arithmetic_item", @items); # returns list of Term's and Op's return $self->_shift_reduce(@terms_ops); } sub arithmetic_item { my ($self, $item) = @_; if ($item eq "+") { return new CWB::CEQL::String "add", "Op" } elsif ($item eq "-") { return new CWB::CEQL::String "sub", "Op" } elsif ($item eq "(") { $self->BeginGroup("subexpression"); return "" } elsif ($item eq ")") { my @terms_ops = $self->EndGroup("subexpression"); return $self->_shift_reduce(@terms_ops); } elsif ($item =~ /^[0-9]+$/) { return new CWB::CEQL::String $item, "Term" } else { die "invalid element '' $item '' in arithmetic expression\n" } } sub _shift_reduce { my ($self, @terms_ops) = @_; while (@terms_ops >= 3) { # reduce first three items (which must be Term Op Term) to single Term my @types = map {$_->type} @terms_ops; die "syntax error in arithmetic expression\n" unless "@types" =~ /^Term Op Term/; # wrong sequence of terms and operators my $t1 = shift @terms_ops; my $op = shift @terms_ops; my $t2 = shift @terms_ops; my $new_term = new CWB::CEQL::String "$op($t1, $t2)", "Term"; unshift @terms_ops, $new_term; } die "syntax error in arithmetic expression\n" unless @terms_ops == 1; # wrong number of items return shift @terms_ops; } The obvious drawback of this approach is the difficulty of signaling the precise location of a syntax error to the user (in the example grammar above, the parser will simply print C if there is any problem in a sequence of terms and operators). By the time the error is detected, all items in the active group have already been pre-processed and subexpressions have been collapsed. Printing the current list of terms and operators would only add to the user's confusion. In order to signal errors immediately where they occur, each item should be validated before it is added to the result list (e.g. an operator may not be pushed as first item on a result list), and the reduce operation (C<< Term Op Term => Term >>) should be applied as soon as possible. The rule C needs direct access to the currently active result list for this purpose: (1) to check how many items have already been pushed when validating a new item, and (2) to reduce a sequence C to a single C in the result list. A pointer to the currently active result list is obtained with the internal B method, allowing a grammar rule to manipulate the result list. The B in the B grammar illustrate this advanced form of shift-reduce parsing. =head2 Backtracking with Try() B<** TODO **> =head1 EXTENDING GRAMMARS B<** TODO **> =head1 USER-VISIBLE METHODS Methods that are called by the "end users" of a grammar. =over 4 =item I<$grammar> = B MyGrammar; Create parser object I<$grammar> for the specified grammar (which must be a class derived from B). Note that the parser itself is not reentrant, but multiple parsers for the same grammar can be run in parallel. The return value I<$grammar> is an object of class B. =cut sub new { my $class = shift; my $self = { 'PARAM_DEFAULTS' => {}, # globally set default values for parameters 'PARAM' => undef, # working copies of parameters during parse 'INPUT' => undef, # input string (defined while parsing) 'ERROR' => undef, # error message generated by last parse (undef = no error) 'CALLSTACK' => [], # call stack for backtrace in case of error 'GROUPS' => undef, # group structure for shift-reduce parser (undef if not active) 'GROUPSTACK' => undef, # stack of nested bracketing groups (undef if not active) }; bless($self, $class); } =item I<$result> = I<$grammar>->B(I<$string> [, I<$rule>]); Parse input string I<$string> as a constituent of type I<$rule> (if unspecified, the C rule will be used). The return value I<$result> is typically a string containing the transformed query, but may also be an arbitrary data structure or object (such as a parse tree for I<$input>). Consult the relevant grammar documentation for details. If parsing fails, B is returned. =cut sub Parse { croak 'Usage: $result = $grammar->Parse($string [, $rule]);' unless @_ == 2 or @_ == 3; my ($self, $input, $rule) = @_; $rule = "default" unless defined $rule; confess "CWB::CEQL::Parser: Parse() method is not re-entrant\n(tried to parse '$input' while parsing '".$self->{INPUT}."')" if defined $self->{INPUT}; $self->{INPUT} = $input; %{$self->{PARAM}} = %{$self->{PARAM_DEFAULTS}}; # shallow copy of hash $self->{CALLSTACK} = []; # re-initialise call stack (should destroy information from last parse) $self->{GROUPS} = undef; # indicate that shift-reduce parser is not active $self->{CURRENT_GROUP} = undef; $self->{GROUPSTACK} = undef; $self->{ERROR} = undef; # clear previous errors my $result = eval { $self->Call($rule, $input) }; # catch exceptions from parse errors if (not defined $result) { my $error = $@; chomp($error); # remove trailing newline $error = "parse of '' ".$self->{INPUT}." '' returned no result (reason unknown)" if $error eq ""; $error =~ s/\s*\n\s*/ **::** /g; $self->{ERROR} = $error; } $self->{INPUT} = undef; # no active parse $self->{PARAM} = undef; # restore global parameter values (PARAM_DEFAULTS) return $result; # undef if parse failed } =item I<@lines_of_text> = I<$grammar>->B; If the last parse failed, returns a detailed error message and backtrace of the callstack as a list of text lines (without newlines). Otherwise, returns empty list. =cut sub ErrorMessage { my $self = shift; my $error = $self->{ERROR}; return () unless defined $error; my @lines = "**Error:** $error"; my $previous_frame = { RULE => "", INPUT => "" }; # init do dummy frame to avoid special case below foreach my $frame (reverse @{$self->{CALLSTACK}}) { my $rule = $frame->{RULE}; if ($rule eq "APPLY") { my @done = @{$frame->{APPLY_DONE}}; my @remain = @{$frame->{APPLY_ITEMS}}; push @lines, " - at this location: '' @done ''**<==**'' @remain ''"; } else { my $input = $frame->{INPUT}; my $previous_input = $previous_frame->{INPUT} || ""; if (($previous_input eq $input) and ($previous_frame->{RULE} ne "APPLY")) { $lines[-1] .= ", **$rule**"; } else { push @lines, " - when parsing '' $input '' as **$rule**"; } } $previous_frame = $frame; } return @lines; } =item I<$html_code> = I<$grammar>->B; If the last parse failed, returns HTML-formatted error message and backtrace of the callstack. The string I<$html_code> is valid HTML and can directly be included in a generated Web page. In particular, unsafe and non-ASCII characters have been encoded as HTML entities. Simple, non-recursive wiki-style markup in an error message is interpreted in the following way: **** is shown in bold font ( ... ) //// is displayed in italics ( ... ) '''' is shown in typewriter font ( ... ) Lines starting with C< - > (note the two blanks) are converted into list items. =cut sub HtmlErrorMessage { my $self = shift; my @text_lines = $self->ErrorMessage(); if (@text_lines > 0) { return $self->formatHtmlText(@text_lines); } else { return undef; } } =item I<$grammar>->B(I<$name>, I<$value>); =item I<$value> = I<$grammar>->B(I<$name>); Set the value of parameter I<$name> (B), or read its current value (B). The parameter I<$name> must have been defined by the grammar class (which I<$grammar> is an instance of) and should be described in the grammar's documentation. =cut sub SetParam { croak 'Usage: $grammar->SetParam($name, $value)' unless @_ == 3; my ($self, $name, $value) = @_; ## select either global parameter values (user level) or working copy (during parse) my $param_set = (defined $self->{INPUT}) ? $self->{PARAM} : $self->{PARAM_DEFAULTS}; croak "CWB::CEQL::Parser: parameter '$name' does not exist" unless exists $param_set->{$name}; $param_set->{$name} = $value; } sub GetParam { croak 'Usage: $grammar->GetParam($name)' unless @_ == 2; my ($self, $name) = @_; my $param_set = (defined $self->{INPUT}) ? $self->{PARAM} : $self->{PARAM_DEFAULTS}; croak "CWB::CEQL::Parser: parameter '$name' does not exist" unless exists $param_set->{$name}; return $param_set->{$name}; } =back =head1 METHODS USED BY GRAMMAR AUTHORS Methods for grammar authors. Since these methods are intended for use in the rules of a DPP grammar, they are typically applied to the object I<$self>. =over 4 =item I<$self>->B(I<$name>, I<$default_value>); Define new parameter I<$name> with default value I<$default_value>. This method is normally called in the constructor (method B) of a parameterized grammar. If it is used in a rule body, the new parameter will be created in the working copy of the parameter set and will only be available during the current parse. =cut sub NewParam { confess 'Usage: $self->NewParam($name, $default_value)' unless @_ == 3; my ($self, $name, $value) = @_; ## select either global parameter values (user level) or working copy (during parse) my $param_set = (defined $self->{INPUT}) ? $self->{PARAM} : $self->{PARAM_DEFAULTS}; confess "CWB::CEQL::Parser: parameter '$name' already exists, cannot create with NewParam()" if exists $param_set->{$name}; $param_set->{$name} = $value; } =item I<$result> = I<$self>->B(I<$rule>, I<$input>); Apply rule I<$rule> to input string I<$input>. The return value I<$result> depends on the grammar rule, but is usually a string containing a translated version of I<$input>. Grammar rules may also annotate this string with B or by Bing it into a custom class, or return a complex data structure such as a parse tree for I<$input>. The caller has to be aware what kind of value I<$rule> returns. Note that B never returns B. In case of an error, the entire parse is aborted. =cut sub Call { confess 'Usage: $result = $self->Call($rule, $input);' unless @_ == 3; my ($self, $rule, $input) = @_; confess "Sorry, we're not parsing yet" unless defined $self->{INPUT}; my $method = $self->can("$rule"); confess "the rule **$rule** does not exist in grammar **".ref($self)."** (internal error)\n" unless defined $method; my $frame = {RULE => $rule, INPUT => $input}; push @{$self->{CALLSTACK}}, $frame; my $result = $method->($self, $input); die "rule **$rule** failed to return a result (internal error)\n" unless defined $result; my $return_frame = pop @{$self->{CALLSTACK}}; die "call stack has been corrupted (internal error)" unless $return_frame eq $frame; return $result; } =item I<$result> = I<$self>->B(I<$rule>, I<$input>); Tentatively apply rule I<$rule> to the input string. If I<$input> is parsed successfully, B returns the translated version I<$result> (or an arbitrary data structure such as a parse tree for I<$input>) just as B would. If parsing fails, B does not abort but simply returns B, ignoring any error messages generated during the attempt. In addition, the call stack is restored and all parameters are reset to their previous values, so that parsing can continue as if nothing had happened (note, however, that this is based on flat backup copies, so complex data structures may have been altered destructively). =cut sub Try { confess 'Usage: $result = $self->Try($rule, $input);' unless @_ == 3; my ($self, $rule, $input) = @_; confess "Sorry, we're not parsing yet" unless defined $self->{INPUT}; ## make flat backup copies of important data structures and ensure they are restored upon return ## (this is not completely safe, but should undo most changes that a failed parse may have made) my $back_param = [ @{$self->{PARAM}} ]; my $back_callstack = [ @{$self->{CALLSTACK}} ]; my ($back_groups, $back_current_group, $back_groupstack) = (undef, undef, undef); if (defined $self->{GROUPS}) { $back_groups = [ @{$self->{GROUPS}} ]; $back_current_group = [ @{$back_groups->[0]} ] if @$back_groups > 0; } if (defined $self->{GROUPSTACK}) { $back_groupstack = [ @{$self->{GROUPSTACK}} ]; } my $result = eval { $self->Call($rule, $input) }; ## if parsing failed, restore internal data structures from backup copies if (not defined $result) { $self->{PARAM} = $back_param; $self->{CALLSTACK} = $back_callstack; $self->{GROUPS} = $back_groups; if (defined $back_groups and defined $back_current_group) { $self->{GROUPS}->[0] = $back_current_group; } $self->{GROUPSTACK} = $back_groupstack; } return $result; } =item I<@results> = I<$self>->B(I<$rule>, I<@items>); Apply rule I<$rule> to each input string in the list I<@items>. The return values are collected and returned as a list I<@results>, which has to be further processed by the caller. Note that empty strings (C<"">) are automatically removed from the list of return values. =cut sub Apply { confess 'Usage: @results = $self->Apply($rule, @items);' unless @_ >= 2; my $self = shift; my $rule = shift; my $frame = {RULE => "APPLY", INPUT => undef, APPLY_ITEMS => [ @_ ], APPLY_DONE => []}; push @{$self->{CALLSTACK}}, $frame; ## data structures for nested groups and result values must be restored on exit (in case of nested Apply()) local $self->{GROUPS} = [ [] ]; # set up data structure to collect result values of nested groups local $self->{GROUPSTACK} = []; # stack of nested groups (keeps track of nesting depth and ensures proper nesting) ## process each input item in turn while (@{$frame->{APPLY_ITEMS}}) { my $input = shift @{$frame->{APPLY_ITEMS}}; push @{$frame->{APPLY_DONE}}, $input; my $result = $self->Call($rule, $input); push @{$self->{GROUPS}->[0]}, $result unless $result eq "" and not ref $result; # plain empty string indicates that this item does not generate output } ## check that nested bracketing was balanced and that data structure for result values is sane if (@{$self->{GROUPSTACK}} > 0) { my $next_type = pop @{$self->{GROUPSTACK}}; my $type_msg = ($next_type eq "*") ? "" : "of type ''$next_type''"; die "bracketing is not balanced: too many opening delimiters $type_msg\n"; } confess "data structure for result values is corrupt in Apply() call (internal error)" unless @{$self->{GROUPS}} == 1; my @results = @{$self->{GROUPS}->[0]}; my $return_frame = pop @{$self->{CALLSTACK}}; die "call stack has been corrupted (internal error)" unless $return_frame eq $frame; return @results; } =item I<$self>->B([I<$name>]); Marks the start of a nested group, when an opening delimiter is encountered. B may only be called while the shift-reduce parser is active during an B operation. The optional parameter I<$name> can be used to ensure proper nesting of different types of groups; the default group name is C<*>. After calling B, a DPP rule will often return C<""> since the opening determiner has a purely syntactic function and is not generate output directly. =cut sub BeginGroup { my ($self, $name) = @_; $name = "*" unless defined $name; my $group_stack = $self->{GROUPSTACK}; confess "BeginGroup() called outside Apply() operation (internal error)" unless defined $group_stack; push @$group_stack, $name; unshift @{$self->{GROUPS}}, []; } =item I<@group_results> = I<$self>->B([I<$name>]); Marks the end of a nested group, when a closing delimiter is encountered. The optional parameter I<$name> (or the default name C<*>) must be identical to the group name of the matching opening delimiter. B returns a list containing the result values collected from this nested group. =cut sub EndGroup { my ($self, $name) = @_; $name = "*" unless defined $name; my $group_stack = $self->{GROUPSTACK}; my $groups = $self->{GROUPS}; confess "EndGroup() called outside Apply() operation (internal error)" unless defined $group_stack; my $type_msg = ($name eq "*") ? "" : "of type ''$name''"; die "bracketing is not balanced: too many closing delimiters $type_msg\n" unless @$group_stack > 0; confess "data structure for result values is corrupt in Apply() call (internal error)" unless @$groups == @$group_stack + 1; my $active_group = pop @$group_stack; die "opening delimiter of type ''$active_group'' paired with closing delimiter of type ''$name''\n" unless $name eq $active_group; my $group_results = shift @$groups; return @$group_results; } =item I<$n> = I<$self>->B; Returns the nesting depth I<$n> of the current group during an B operation. A nesting depth of 0 corresponds to the top level. B may only be called while the shift-reduce parser is active and will B otherwise. =cut sub NestingLevel { my $self = shift; my $group_stack = $self->{GROUPSTACK}; confess "NestingLevel() called outside Apply() operation (internal error)" unless defined $group_stack; return scalar @{$group_stack}; } =back =head1 INTERNAL METHODS Internal methods of B. =over 4 =item I<$array_ref> = I<$self>->B; Returns a pointer to the currently active result list during an B operation (either the top-level result list, or the local result list in a nested group). This pointer can be used to access previously collected return values (before B is called), and to manipulate the result list (e.g. to perform advanced shift-reduce parsing). It is an error to call this method while the shift-reduce parser is not active. =cut sub currentGroup { my $self = shift; confess "currentGroup() called outside Apply() operation (internal error)" unless defined $self->{GROUPSTACK}; return $self->{GROUPS}->[0]; } =item I<$html_code> = I<$grammar>->B(I<@lines_of_text>); Format one or more text lines with simple wiki-style markup as HTML. The string I<$html_code> is valid HTML and can directly be included in a generated Web page. In particular, unsafe and non-ASCII characters are automatically encoded as HTML entities. The following typographic markup is supported: =over 4 =item * C<< **** >> - is displayed in bold face (C<< ... >>) =item * C<< //// >> - is displayed in italics (C<< ... >>) =item * C<< '''' >> - is shown in typewriter font (C<< ... >>) =item * lines starting with C< - > (note the two blanks before and after the hyphen) are converted into list items =item * all other lines are formatted as separate paragraphs (C<<

...

>>) =back The wiki markup is non-recursive, i.e. no substitutions will be applied to the text wrapped in C<''...''> etc. This behaviour is intentional, so that e.g. B<**> in a query expression will not be mistaken for a bold face marker, (as long as the query is displayed in typewriter font, i.e. as C<''''>). =cut sub formatHtmlText { my $self = shift; my @html_lines = (); my $in_list = 0; while (@_) { my $line = shift; my $list_item = ($line =~ s{^ -\s+}{}) ? 1 : 0; $line = $self->encodeEntities($line); # does not affect **, // and '' $line =~ s{(\*\*|//|'')(.*?)(\1)}{ if ($1 eq "**") { "$2" } elsif ($1 eq "//") { "$2" } else { "$2" } }ge; if ($list_item) { push @html_lines, "
    " unless $in_list; push @html_lines, "
  • $line
  • "; $in_list = 1; } else { push @html_lines, "
" if $in_list; push @html_lines, "

$line

"; $in_list = 0; } } push @html_lines, "" if $in_list; return join("\n", @html_lines); } =item I<$html> = I<$grammar>->B(I<$string>); Replacement for B function from B, to avoid dependency on this package (which is not part of the standard library). Transforms unsafe characters C>, C>, C<&> and C<"> into HTML entities, normalises whitespace and removes other control characters. If I<$string> is a Unicode string, all non-ASCII characters are replaced by numerical entities (otherwise, an unknown 8-bit character set is assumed, so no substitutions can be made). =cut sub encodeEntities { my ($self, $s) = @_; my %entity = ( '<' => '<', '>' => '>', '&' => '&', '"' => '"' ); $s =~ s/([<>&"])/$entity{$1}/ge; # unsafe characters => entities $s =~ s/[ \t]+/ /g; # normalise whitespace (but not line breaks) $s =~ s/[\x00-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f]+//g; # remove other control characters except LF and CR if (Encode::is_utf8($s)) { $s =~ s/([^\x00-\x7f])/sprintf "&#x%X;", ord($1)/ge; } return $s; } =back =head2 Internal structure of CWB::CEQL::Parser objects A DPP parser object (i.e. an object that belongs to B or one of its subclasses) is a data structure (hashref) with the following variables: =over 4 =item PARAM_DEFAULTS A hashref containing the global values of grammar parameters, i.e. values set by the main program for this parser object or the default values defined by the grammar class. =item PARAM Working copy of the grammar parameters, which is used while parsing and may be modified by grammar rules without affecting the global values. During a parse, the B, B and B methods operate on this working copy. The C variable is re-initialised before each parse with a flat copy of the C hashref. Therefore, care has to be taken when modifying complex parameter values within grammar rules, as the changes will affect the global values in C. If complex values need to be changed internally, the grammar rule should always update the parameter with B and a deep copy of the previous parameter value. =item INPUT The current input string passed to the B method. This variable is mostly used to indicate whether the parser is currently active or not (e.g. in order to avoid nested B calls). =item ERROR Error message generated by the last parse, or B if the parse was successful. This error message is returned by B and B together with a backtrace of the parser's call stack. =item CALLSTACK The C variable is an arrayref with information about the nested calls of grammar rules and their input strings. Each array element corresponds to a nested rule invocation and is a hashref with the following fields: =over 4 =item RULE Name of the grammar rule (i.e. Perl B) invoked. When the shift-reduce parser is called with B, a special rule named C is pushed on the stack. =item INPUT Input string for the grammar rule (which should be a constituent of the respective type). =item APPLY_ITEMS (optional, "APPLY" rule only) List (arrayref) of items passed to B for processing by the shift-reduce parser. This field is only present in the call stack entry for the special C rule. Items are shifted from this list to C as they are processed by the shift-reduce parser. =item APPLY_DONE (optiona, "APPLY" rule only) Items from the list passed to B that have already been handled by the shift-reduce parser. The main purpose of C and C is to narrow down the location of parse errors in a nested bracketing structure. =back =item GROUPS List (arrayref) of arrayrefs collecting parse results for nested bracketing groups. The first element of this list corresponds to the currently active bracketing group. The C variable is only defined while the shift-reduce parser is active. =item GROUPSTACK Stack (arrayref) of nested bracketing groups. Each stack element corresponds to one level of nesting and is a string giving the type of the respective group. If no type has been specified by the user, the default value C<*> is used. The length of this array can be used to determine the current nesting depth. =back =head1 COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 1999-2010 Stefan Evert [http::/purl.org/stefan.evert] This software is provided AS IS and the author makes no warranty as to its use and performance. You may use the software, redistribute and modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. =cut 1;