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What is this?

Pegen is the parser generator used in CPython to produce the parser used by the interpreter. It allows to produce PEG parsers from a description of a formal Grammar.

Installing

Install with pip or your favorite PyPi package manager.

pip install pegen

Documentation

The documentation is available here.

How to generate a parser

Given a grammar file compatible with pegen (you can write your own or start with one in the data directory), you can easily generate a parser by running:

python -m pegen <path-to-grammar-file> -o parser.py

This will generate a file called parser.py in the current directory. This can be used to parse code using the grammar that we just used:

python parser.py <file-with-code-to-parse>

As a demo: generate a Python parser from data/python.gram, and use the generated parser to parse and run tests/demo.py

make demo

How to contribute

See the instructions in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Differences with CPython's Pegen

This repository exists to distribute a version of the Python PEG parser generator used by CPython that can be installed via PyPI, with some improvements. Although the official PEG generator included in CPython can generate both Python and C code, this distribution of the generator only allows to generate Python code. This is due to the fact that the C code generated by the generator included in CPython includes a lot of implementation details and private headers that are not available for general usage.

The official PEG generator for Python 3.9 and later is now included in the CPython repo under Tools/peg_generator/. We aim to keep this repo in sync with the Python generator from that version of pegen.

See also PEP 617.

Repository structure

  • The src directory contains the pegen source (the package itself).
  • The tests directory contains the test suite for the pegen package.
  • The data directory contains some example grammars compatible with pegen. This includes a pure-Python version of the Python grammar.
  • The docs directory contains the documentation for the package.
  • The scripts directory contains some useful scripts that can be used for visualizing grammars, benchmarking and other usages relevant to the development of the generator itself.
  • The stories directory contains the backing files and examples for Guido's series on PEG parser.

Quick syntax overview

The grammar consists of a sequence of rules of the form:

    rule_name: expression

Optionally, a type can be included right after the rule name, which specifies the return type of the Python function corresponding to the rule:

    rule_name[return_type]: expression

If the return type is omitted, then Any is returned.

Grammar Expressions

# comment

Python-style comments.

e1 e2

Match e1, then match e2.

    rule_name: first_rule second_rule

e1 | e2

Match e1 or e2.

The first alternative can also appear on the line after the rule name for formatting purposes. In that case, a | must be used before the first alternative, like so:

    rule_name[return_type]:
        | first_alt
        | second_alt

( e )

Match e.

    rule_name: (e)

A slightly more complex and useful example includes using the grouping operator together with the repeat operators:

    rule_name: (e1 e2)*

[ e ] or e?

Optionally match e.

    rule_name: [e]

A more useful example includes defining that a trailing comma is optional:

    rule_name: e (',' e)* [',']

e*

Match zero or more occurrences of e.

    rule_name: (e1 e2)*

e+

Match one or more occurrences of e.

    rule_name: (e1 e2)+

s.e+

Match one or more occurrences of e, separated by s. The generated parse tree does not include the separator. This is otherwise identical to (e (s e)*).

    rule_name: ','.e+

&e

Succeed if e can be parsed, without consuming any input.

!e

Fail if e can be parsed, without consuming any input.

An example taken from the Python grammar specifies that a primary consists of an atom, which is not followed by a . or a ( or a [:

    primary: atom !'.' !'(' !'['

~

Commit to the current alternative, even if it fails to parse.

    rule_name: '(' ~ some_rule ')' | some_alt

In this example, if a left parenthesis is parsed, then the other alternative won’t be considered, even if some_rule or ‘)’ fail to be parsed.

Left recursion

PEG parsers normally do not support left recursion but Pegen implements a technique that allows left recursion using the memoization cache. This allows us to write not only simple left-recursive rules but also more complicated rules that involve indirect left-recursion like

  rule1: rule2 | 'a'
  rule2: rule3 | 'b'
  rule3: rule1 | 'c'

and "hidden left-recursion" like::

  rule: 'optional'? rule '@' some_other_rule

Variables in the Grammar

A sub-expression can be named by preceding it with an identifier and an = sign. The name can then be used in the action (see below), like this: ::

    rule_name[return_type]: '(' a=some_other_rule ')' { a }

Grammar actions

To avoid the intermediate steps that obscure the relationship between the grammar and the AST generation the PEG parser allows directly generating AST nodes for a rule via grammar actions. Grammar actions are language-specific expressions that are evaluated when a grammar rule is successfully parsed. These expressions can be written in Python. As an example of a grammar with Python actions, the piece of the parser generator that parses grammar files is bootstrapped from a meta-grammar file with Python actions that generate the grammar tree as a result of the parsing.

In the specific case of the PEG grammar for Python, having actions allows directly describing how the AST is composed in the grammar itself, making it more clear and maintainable. This AST generation process is supported by the use of some helper functions that factor out common AST object manipulations and some other required operations that are not directly related to the grammar.

To indicate these actions each alternative can be followed by the action code inside curly-braces, which specifies the return value of the alternative

    rule_name[return_type]:
        | first_alt1 first_alt2 { first_alt1 }
        | second_alt1 second_alt2 { second_alt1 }

If the action is ommited, a default action is generated:

  • If there's a single name in the rule in the rule, it gets returned.

  • If there is more than one name in the rule, a collection with all parsed expressions gets returned.

This default behaviour is primarily made for very simple situations and for debugging purposes.

As an illustrative example this simple grammar file allows directly generating a full parser that can parse simple arithmetic expressions and that returns a valid Python AST:

    start[ast.Module]: a=expr_stmt* ENDMARKER { ast.Module(body=a or []) }
    expr_stmt: a=expr NEWLINE { ast.Expr(value=a, EXTRA) }

    expr:
        | l=expr '+' r=term { ast.BinOp(left=l, op=ast.Add(), right=r, EXTRA) }
        | l=expr '-' r=term { ast.BinOp(left=l, op=ast.Sub(), right=r, EXTRA) }
        | term

    term:
        | l=term '*' r=factor { ast.BinOp(left=l, op=ast.Mult(), right=r, EXTRA) }
        | l=term '/' r=factor { ast.BinOp(left=l, op=ast.Div(), right=r, EXTRA) }
        | factor

    factor:
        | '(' e=expr ')' { e }
        | atom

    atom:
        | NAME
        | NUMBER