Building Parsers with Java™

Foreword

I never used to like parsing, either in theory or in practice. For one thing, all the parsing theory I've studied suffers from an overabundance of funny characters and symbols. I'm all for rigor, but not at the expense of clarity or the typesetter's sanity. Whatever concrete examples there have been, moreover, tend to be obscure and ignore the problems of modern programming. In fact, most texts on parsing reflect decades-old perspectives on software design and development. And most explanations, it seems, come encased in wooden prose.

The practice of parsing has fared no better. Traditional parsing tools are overkill at best, antiquated and unusable at worst. The result? Ad hoc has become the parsing approach of choice.

But when I read ...