Parsing Techniques

Recursive Descent and Operator Precedence:

• Advantages:
  • Easy to control, understand.

  • Good error messages can be produced.

• Disadvantages:
  • More code to write.

  • Grammar not as clear.
    Does the program really match the grammar?

Parser Generator: yacc

• Advantages:
  • Less code to write.

  • Grammar is clear and easy to change.

• Disadvantages:
  • The programmer may get ``stuck'' on grammar errors that are hard to understand.

  • Error messages during compilation may be unhelpful and far from the actual error.