Lexical state analyzer for JavaCC grammars. (22nd April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gupta, Kartik; Nandivada, V. Krishna
• Is Part Of: Software, practice & experience. Volume 46:Number 6(2016)
• Page Start: 751
• Page End: 765
• Publication Date: 2015-04-22
• Subjects: compilers -- context‐free grammar -- lexical states -- JavaCC; Computer software -- Periodicals; Computer programming -- Periodicals; Computer programs -- Periodicals; 005.3
• DOI: 10.1002/spe.2322
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0644

Abstract

Summary: Lexical states in JavaCC provide a powerful mechanism to scan regular expressions in a context sensitive manner. But lexical states also make it hard to reason about the correctness of the grammar. We first categorize the related correctness issues into two classes: errors and warnings. We then extend the traditional context sensitive and a context insensitive analysis to identify errors and warnings in context‐free grammars. We have implemented these analyses as a standalone tool (LSA ), the first of its kind, to identify errors and warnings in JavaCC grammars. TheLSA tool outputs a graph that depicts the grammar and the error transitions. Importantly, it can also generate counter example strings that can be used to establish the errors. We have usedLSA to analyze a host of open‐source JavaCC grammar files to good effect. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.