How to Parse a File

Explore the intricacies of file parsing in this comprehensive 59-minute conference talk by Matt Ellis at NDC Conferences. Dive into various parsing techniques, from simple hand-crafted parsers to complex structured parsers that build abstract syntax trees in real-time. Discover the differences between IDE and compiler parsers, learn about error recovery strategies, and understand how to handle significant whitespace. Gain insights into topics such as regular expressions, state transitions, syntax analysis, top-down and bottom-up parsing, parser combinators, and incremental parsing. Explore practical applications with FParsec and CParsec, and learn about error handling, token manipulation, and composable languages. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced developer, this talk offers valuable knowledge on file parsing techniques and their implementation in modern programming environments.

Introduction
Why pass a file
Naive parser
Regular expressions
State transitions
Syntax analysis
Topdown parse
Topdown vs bottomup
Parser combinators
FParsec
CParsec
Filter
Syntax Trees
Filter Tokens
Mechanical Process
Significant Whitespace
Insert Tokens
Nested Comments
Summary
Surprise tokens
Passing
Error Handling
Why do we care
Error elements
How to find an error
Panic mode
Token insertion
Token removal
Errors
Incremental parsing
Composable languages
Conclusion