D compiler front end in Phobos (was: syntax definition language)

[Gor Gyolchanyan]

Yes. a general-purpose parsing tool would be great.
I don't think, that porting DMD's front-end is a good idea, because
it's far from being generic or modular.
We're gonna have to start from scratch.

Optionally, it would be really great to make it CTFE-able, so it could
be used to provide a complete compile-time reflection.

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, October 23, 2011 22:27:17 Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
>> cool!
>> I really _REALY_ want to get a working D front-end into Phobos.
>> preferably during my lifetime.
>> Obviously there's some work already done in this area.
>> I'd like us to chip in and discuss this in-depth and come up with a
>> plan to do this.
>> AFAIK everyone was in favor of a front-end as a library solution.
>
> The two proposed approaches at the moment are to port dmd's frontend to D for
> Phobos and to write a template-based generative, generic solution. The first
> would obviously be D-specific. The second would be for _any_ language. In
> either case, any solution needs to be broken up into a lexer, parser, etc. in
> manner which allows you to use only the pieces that you need for a particular
> application.
>
> And so unless you're going with the "port dmd frontend to D" approach, any
> solution really needs to be generic and not D-specific. Naturally, we'll
> provied whatever's needed to generate the D lexer, parser, etc. as part of
> Phobos, but the lexer, paresr, etc. need to be generic and generative rather
> than D-specfiic.
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/digitalmars-d@puremagic.com/msg40358.html
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>