Question

Part of a simple skeleton utility I’m hacking on I have a grammar for triggering substitutions in text. I thought it a wonderful way to get comfortable with Boost.Spirit, but the template errors are a joy of a unique kind.

Here is the code in its entirety:

#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/include/phoenix.hpp>

namespace bsq = boost::spirit::qi;

namespace {
template<typename Iterator>
struct skel_grammar : public bsq::grammar<Iterator> {
    skel_grammar();

private:
    bsq::rule<Iterator> macro_b;
    bsq::rule<Iterator> macro_e;
    bsq::rule<Iterator, bsq::ascii::space_type> id;
    bsq::rule<Iterator> macro;
    bsq::rule<Iterator> text;
    bsq::rule<Iterator> start;
};

template<typename Iterator>
skel_grammar<Iterator>::skel_grammar() : skel_grammar::base_type(start)
{
    text = bsq::no_skip[+(bsq::char_ - macro_b)[bsq::_val += bsq::_1]];
    macro_b = bsq::lit("<<");
    macro_e = bsq::lit(">>");
    macro %= macro_b >> id >> macro_e;
    id %= -(bsq::ascii::alpha | bsq::char_('_'))
        >> +(bsq::ascii::alnum | bsq::char_('_'));
    start = *(text | macro);
}
}  // namespace

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    std::string input((std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(std::cin)),
                      std::istreambuf_iterator<char>());
    skel_grammar<std::string::iterator> grammar;
    bool r = bsq::parse(input.begin(), input.end(), grammar);
    std::cout << std::boolalpha << r << '\n';
    return 0;
}

What’s wrong with this code?

Answer 1

Mmm. I feel that we have discussed a few more details in chat than have been reflected in the question as it is.

Let me entertain you with my ‘toy’ implementation, complete with test cases, of a grammar that will recognize <<macros>> like this, including nested expansion of the same.

Notable features:

1. Expansion is done using a callback (process()), giving you maximum flexibility (you could use a look up table, cause parsing to fail depending on the macro content, or even have sideeffects independent of the output
2. the parser is optimized to favour streaming mode. Look at spirit::istream_iterator on how to parse input in streaming mode (Stream-based Parsing Made Easy). This has the obvious benefits if your input stream is 10 GB, and contains only 4 macros – it is the difference between crawling performance (or running out of memory) and just scaling.
   • note that the demo still writes to a string buffer (via oss). You could, however, easily, hook the output directly to std::cout or, say, an std::ofstream instance
3. Expansion is done eagerly, so you can have nifty effects using indirect macros. See the testcases
4. I even demoed a simplistic way to support escaping the << or >> delimiters (#define SUPPORT_ESCAPES)

Without further ado:

The Code

Note due to laziness, I require -std==c++0x, but only when SUPPORT_ESCAPES is defined

//#define BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/include/phoenix.hpp>

namespace qi = boost::spirit::qi;
namespace phx= boost::phoenix;
namespace fsn= boost::fusion;

namespace
{
    #define SUPPORT_ESCAPES

    static bool process(std::string& macro)
    {
        if (macro == "error") {
            return false; // fail the parse
        }

        if (macro == "hello") {
            macro = "bye";
        } else if (macro == "bye") {
            macro = "We meet again";
        } else if (macro == "sideeffect") {
            std::cerr << "this is a side effect while parsing\n";
            macro = "(done)";
        } else if (std::string::npos != macro.find('~')) {  
            std::reverse(macro.begin(), macro.end());
            macro.erase(std::remove(macro.begin(), macro.end(), '~'));
        } else {
            macro = std::string("<<") + macro + ">>"; // this makes the unsupported macros appear unchanged
        }

        return true;
    }

    template<typename Iterator, typename OutIt>
        struct skel_grammar : public qi::grammar<Iterator>
    {
        struct fastfwd {
            template<typename,typename> struct result { typedef bool type; };

            template<typename R, typename O> 
                bool operator()(const R&r,O& o) const
            {
#ifndef SUPPORT_ESCAPES
                o = std::copy(r.begin(),r.end(),o);
#else
                auto f = std::begin(r), l = std::end(r);
                while(f!=l)
                {
                    if (('\\'==*f) && (l == ++f))
                        break;
                    *o++ = *f++;
                }
#endif
                return true; // false to fail the parse
            }
        } copy;

        skel_grammar(OutIt& out) : skel_grammar::base_type(start)
        {
            using namespace qi;

#ifdef SUPPORT_ESCAPES
            rawch = ('\\' >> char_) | char_;
#else
#           define rawch qi::char_
#endif

            macro = ("<<" >> (
                           (*(rawch - ">>" - "<<") [ _val += _1 ]) 
                         % macro                   [ _val += _1 ] // allow nests
                      ) >> 
                      ">>")  
                [ _pass = phx::bind(process, _val) ];

            start = 
                raw [ +(rawch - "<<") ] [ _pass = phx::bind(copy, _1, phx::ref(out)) ] 
              % macro                   [ _pass = phx::bind(copy, _1, phx::ref(out)) ]
              ;

            BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODE(start);
            BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODE(macro);


#           undef rawch
        }

        private:
#ifdef SUPPORT_ESCAPES
        qi::rule<Iterator, char()> rawch;
#endif
        qi::rule<Iterator, std::string()> macro;
        qi::rule<Iterator> start;
    };
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    std::string input = 
        "Greeting is <<hello>> world!\n"
        "Side effects are <<sideeffect>> and <<other>> vars are untouched\n"
        "Empty <<>> macros are ok, as are stray '>>' pairs.\n"
        "<<nested <<macros>> (<<hello>>?) work>>\n"
        "The order of expansion (evaluation) is _eager_: '<<<<hello>>>>' will expand to the same as '<<bye>>'\n"
        "Lastly you can do algorithmic stuff too: <<!esrever ~ni <<hello>>>>\n"
#ifdef SUPPORT_ESCAPES // bonus: escapes
        "You can escape \\<<hello>> (not expanded to '<<hello>>')\n"
        "Demonstrate how it <<avoids <\\<nesting\\>> macros>>.\n"
#endif
        ;

    std::ostringstream oss;
    std::ostream_iterator<char> out(oss);

    skel_grammar<std::string::iterator, std::ostream_iterator<char> > grammar(out);

    std::string::iterator f(input.begin()), l(input.end());
    bool r = qi::parse(f, l, grammar);

    std::cout << "parse result: " << (r?"success":"failure") << "\n";
    if (f!=l)
        std::cout << "unparsed remaining: '" << std::string(f,l) << "'\n";

    std::cout << "Streamed output:\n\n" << oss.str() << '\n';

    return 0;
}

The Test Output

this is a side effect while parsing
parse result: success
Streamed output:

Greeting is bye world!
Side effects are (done) and <<other>> vars are untouched
Empty <<>> macros are ok, as are stray '>>' pairs.
<<nested <<macros>> (bye?) work>>
The order of expansion (evaluation) is _eager_: 'We meet again' will expand to the same as 'We meet again'
Lastly you can do algorithmic stuff too: eyb in reverse!
You can escape <<hello>> (not expanded to 'bye')
Demonstrate how it <<avoids <<nesting>> macros>>.

There is quite a lot of functionality hidden there to grok. I suggest you look at the test cases and the process() callback alongside each other to see what is going on.

Cheers & HTH 🙂