Nez : Open Grammar Language and tools

Nez is an open grammar specification language based on parsing expression grammars (PEGs). Once you write a grammar for complex data or computer languages, you can use it anywhere for various purposes including pattern matchers, transformers, interpreters, compilers and other language tools.

Features

Nez is a PEG-based parsing library and parser generator tools. Nez features are characterized by:

Grammar language
- Parsing expression grammars
- Flexible tree construction with PCRE-style notations
- No action code, but allowing practical context-sensitive parsing
Parser generator anywhere
- Parser source code generation for multiple languages
- Grammar translation
- Very fast parser interpreter (parsing virtual machine)
Runtime technology
- Constant-space packrat parsing
- DFA-based optimizer (experimental)
Applications
- Programming languages
- Big “Text” Data Analysis

Nez named after “nezumi”, rats in Japanese. As the name implies, Nez has been inspired by packrat parsing.

Quick Start

To use the nez command, download the nez.jar file:

$ curl -O http://nez-peg.github.io/download/nez.jar
$ sudo cp nez.jar /usr/local/lib/nez.jar
$ alias nez='java -jar /usr/local/lib/nez.jar'
$ alias inez='java -jar /usr/local/lib/nez.jar shell'

Also, it is good idea to put the alias setting in your .bash_profile or something like it.

Let us begin with “Getting Started”

Development

Nez is originally developed by Kimio Kuramitsu with his graduate students in Yokohama National University, JAPAN.

You are welcome to contribute code. You can send code both as a patch or a GitHub pull request.

Note that Nez is still very much work in progress. There are no compatibility guarantees while the beta version.