Re: The external interface for the parser piece

At 04:23 PM 11/28/00 -0500, Chaim Frenkel wrote:
>Err, this seems a little too Swiss Army Knife.
>
>This reads like a utility function. (i.e. A function that handles the
>most common scenerio.)

What it's supposed to be is the highest-level interface to the parser, and 
so it's supposed to handle all the common cases without requiring whoever's 
using it to read more than half a page of documentation, total.

>Shouldn't a set of lower level visible API be visible? One that seems
>to pop out at me is some way of actually parsing a piece of code and
>ending up with a handle on a syntax tree. And ways of adding and removing
>these pieces.

Sure. That would be the internal API bit. Nobody's put anything solid 
forward yet for that bit.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

>These are abstract functions that would be needed on the interior of the
>parser, but a bottom up approach may be more appropriate here.

Sure. Suggestions?

>I also like the suggestion that rather than supply flags, we should
>follow the lead and supply a Perl* something that would return an
>appropriate bunch of text to the parser.

I'd really rather not, since that would place the burden of knowing too 
much about the guts of perl on whoever's using it. I don't want to do that.

					Dan

--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
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                                      teddy bears get drunk