Nested parsers in happy / infinite loop?
- by McManiaC
I'm trying to write a parser for a simple markup language with happy. Currently, I'm having some issues with infinit loops and nested elements.
My markup language basicly consists of two elements, one for "normal" text and one for bold/emphasized text.
data Markup
= MarkupText String
| MarkupEmph [Markup]
For example, a text like Foo *bar* should get parsed as [MarkupText "Foo ", MarkupEmph [MarkupText "bar"]].
Lexing of that example works fine, but the parsing it results in an infinite loop - and I can't see why. This is my current approach:
-- The main parser: Parsing a list of "Markup"
Markups :: { [Markup] }
: Markups Markup { $1 ++ [$2] }
| Markup { [$1] }
-- One single markup element
Markup :: { Markup }
: '*' Markups1 '*' { MarkupEmph $2 }
| Markup1 { $1 }
-- The nested list inside *..*
Markups1 :: { [Markup] }
: Markups1 Markup1 { $1 ++ [$2] }
| Markup1 { [$1] }
-- Markup which is always available:
Markup1 :: { Markup }
: String { MarkupText $1 }
What's wrong with that approach? How could the be resolved?
Update: Sorry. Lexing wasn't working as expected. The infinit loop was inside the lexer. Sorry. :)
Update 2: On request, I'm using this as lexer:
lexer :: String -> [Token]
lexer [] = []
lexer str@(c:cs)
| c == '*' = TokenSymbol "*" : lexer cs
-- ...more rules...
| otherwise = TokenString val : lexer rest
where (val, rest) = span isValidChar str
isValidChar = (/= '*')
The infinit recursion occured because I had lexer str instead of lexer cs in that first rule for '*'. Didn't see it because my actual code was a bit more complex. :)
