Codebox Software

Here is a simple top-down parser written in JavaScript. Every so often I need to write a parser, and keep forgetting how the recursion works. This is a simple- and general-as-possible implementation that I can refer back to in the future.

To use the parser, call the buildParser() function with a single string argument containing the grammar. Each production rule in the grammar should be on a separate line, and the symbol should be followed by the character sequence ->, and then by the substitutions. The symbol | is used as a delimiter on the RHS of a rule if there are multiple valid substitutions.

By default the start symbol is START, and ε is used to represent an empty string, although alternate values can be supplied when calling buildParser(). The parser checks for left-recursion in the grammar, and will throw an error if it finds any - this prevents nasty infinite loops. Whitespace between tokens is ignored when parsing, so input values of 1+2 and 1 + 2 are handled identically.

I have used several ES6 language features in the code, so this won't work in older browsers.

Demo