Noldorin's Blog

This is just a quick note about a particularly useful article that I stumbled across in the process of writing my TeX Math parser (to be described in full in an upcoming post). The article Grammars and parsing with C# 2.0 is a wonderful introduction to writing a lexer and parser for any language represented by a context free grammar (more accurately, a parser expression grammar).

The document is written in a refreshingly lucid fashion and what is more there are straightforward examples in C# regularly interspersed. (I am not overly-inclined to give out such praise!) For a topic so mired in confusion and complexity, I though this would be an especially helpful link to share with any C# coders who are interested in entering the field, as I am currently doing myself. The content is something I believe any coder with a solid background in OOP should be able to drive straight into without much difficulty (that isn’t to say you will glean everything from a one-pass read). Of course, it is only a guide for relative beginners (albeit a fairly thorough one) – if anyone happens to have other basic or more advanced texts on the subject of similar quality, it would be great to compile a small collection of selective resources on the subject, and expand this post in the process.