ANTLR 3.x Tutorial
Many folks have asked me to convert my ANTLR 2.x tutorial to ANTLR 3.x. I started doing it and got reaaaaaaaaaalllly tired of typing. Being a bear of very little patience, I decided to go a different route, one which I think will prove even more effective. Go laziness!
This version of the tutorial is video-based. Using Camtasia Studio (the best screen/video capture software in the world!) I've recorded my babbling on while creating a parser for the XL language in ANTLR 3.x in Eclipse.
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Videos
I've uploaded the following videos to vimeo. Each is listed below with a short description. I recommend you watch them in order as they assume knowledge of previous videos.
Vimeo video group: http://vimeo.com/groups/29150
Video License

ANTLR 3.x Tutorial by
Scott Stanchfield is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works
3.0 United States License.
Feel free to watch the videos and point friends to them, but you
cannot use them as part of any commercial product nor can you
create derivative works. Follow the link above to see the
complete license text.
Concepts - What I should have recorded first but forgot until I was 6 steps in...
Prologue - Getting Eclipse set up for ANTLR 3.x development
- Prologue 1: Setting up Eclipse for use with ANTLR 3.x - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8001326
- Prologue 2: Creating an ANTLR 3.x project in Eclipse - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8015802
Creating an XL Recognizer
- Part 1 - Starting to implement XL - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8137747
- Part 2 - Let's check out the generated code - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8138136
- Part 3 - Parsing expressions -
http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8138418
- NOTE: I noticed I messed up the expression tree a bit. That's what I get for doing this on the fly ;) The tree for 3+2*6+4 should look like
+ / \ + 4 / \ 3 * / \ 2 6 - Part 4 - Ifs, loops, and comments - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8138774
- Part 5 - Procedures and Functions - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8139003
- Part 6 - Type declarations, scanner fragments, cleaning up token text - http://www.vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8139310
Interpreting Expressions
- Part 7 - Interpreting expressions while parsing the input - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8377320
- Part 8 - Interpreting expressions using the GoF Interpreter Pattern - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8377479
- Part 9 - Interpreting expressions using an ANTLR Tree Parser - http://vimeo.com/groups/29150/videos/8377605
Sample Code
The following are snapshots of the sample code at various points during the tutorial.
- After part 6 (recognizer): antlr3xtut-part6.zip
- After part 9 (expression interpreters): antlr3xtut-part9.zip
Software License
All sample code is licensed under the Eclipse Public License, version 1.0.
See http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html for details.
ANTLR is licensed under a BSD License:
| ANTLR 3 License [The BSD License] Copyright (c) 2003-2008, Terence Parr All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. |