[Python-Dev] Java-ing Python /2

Greg Ewing greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Fri, 12 Apr 2002 12:12:18 +1200 (NZST)


> Still, in my opinion it would be quite an interesting feature if
> python could make the addition of other grammars as easily as adding a
> new python module.

I believe there is an intention to re-design the parsing stuff at some
time in the future to make the parse tree more easily accessible and
manipulable, so maybe something like this will be possible one day.

> A new grammar module would basically be a map of the foreign language
> to the python tokens.

There's always going to be more to doing such a translation than just
token-to-token mappings -- otherwise it would be possible to turn Java
into Python with a few simple string substitutions. :-)

> And a mechanism to deal with non-mappable features of the foreign
> language.

Yep, that's the really hard part!

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
Christchurch, New Zealand	   | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc.  |
greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	   +--------------------------------------+