livelex 0.0.6

The livelex lexer

This module is designed to parse text using rules, which are regular-expression based. Rules are grouped into lexicons, and lexicons are grouped into a Language object. Every lexicon has its own set of rules that describe the text that is expected in that context.

A rule consists of three parts: a pattern, an action and a target.

• The pattern is a either a regular expression string, or an object that inherits Pattern. In that case its build() method is called to get the pattern.

• The action can be any object, and is streamed together with the matched part of the text. It can be seen as a token. If the action is an instance of Action, its filter_actions() method is called, which can yield zero or more tokens. The special skip action skips the matching text.

• The target is a list of objects, which can be integer numbers or references to a different lexicon. A positive number pushes the same lexicon on the stack, while a negative number pops the current lexicon(s) off the stack, so that lexing the text continues with a previous lexicon. It is also possible to pop a lexicon and push a different one.

Using a special rule, a lexicon may specify a default action, which is streamed with text that is not recognized by any other rule in the lexicon. A lexicon may also specify a default target, which is chosen when no rule matches the current text.

Here is a crude example of how to create a Language class and then use it:

from livelex import *


class MyLang(Language):
    """A Language represents a set of Lexicons comprising a specific language.

    A Language is never instantiated. The class itself serves as a namespace
    and can be inherited from.



    """

    @lexicon(re_flags=0)
    def root(cls):
        yield Words(('bla', 'BLA')), 'bla action'
        yield r'ble', 'ble action'
        yield r'\s+', skip      # this text is skipped
        yield r'(bl)(ub)', Subgroup('bl act', 'ub act')
        yield r'blo', 'blo action', cls.blo
        yield default_action, "TEXT"

    @lexicon
    def blo(cls):
        yield r'\s+', skip      # this text is skipped
        yield r'1', '1 in blo'
        yield r'4', '4 in blo, end', -1
        yield r'[0-9]', Text(lambda t: "has 3" if '3' in t else 'no 3')
        yield default_action, "unparsed"

>>> from livelex import Lexer
>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> s = "bla pythonBLA blub blablo b39la 1 4 ble"
>>> pprint(list(Lexer(MyLang.root).lex(s)))
[(0, 'bla', 'bla action', False),
 (4, 'python', 'TEXT', False),
 (10, 'BLA', 'bla action', False),
 (14, 'bl', 'bl act', None),
 (16, 'ub', 'ub act', False),
 (19, 'bla', 'bla action', False),
 (22, 'blo', 'blo action', True),
 (26, 'b', 'unparsed', False),
 (27, '3', 'has 3', False),
 (28, '9', 'no 3', False),
 (29, 'la', 'unparsed', False),
 (32, '1', '1 in blo', False),
 (34, '4', '4 in blo, end', True),
 (36, 'ble', 'ble action', False)]

The livelex module is written and maintained by Wilbert Berendsen.