perlquestion goibhniu My concept is to wrap some configuration management command lines in a Perl framework to expose the command options along with other configuration data in a standard configuration file. For the design, I've "drawn" these boxes in my head (and now in ASCII art): <c> /--------------\ /------------\ /-----------\ /------------\ /--------\ | | | | | | | | | | | command line |-->| Parse:: |-->| Data |-->| Data:: |-->| XML | | string |<--| RecDescent |<--| structure |<--| Serializer |<--| FILE | | | | | | | | | | | /--------------\ /------------\ /-----------\ /------------\ /--------\ ^ | /------------\ | | | command | | line | | grammar | | | /------------\ </c> In the proof-of-concept stage, I've had some successes and some setbacks. PerlMonks++ to Niel Neely, the maintainer of [cpan://Data::Serializer], for responding VERY quickly to a bug. [cpan://Data::Serializer] 0.44 includes this patch and lets me use [cpan://XML::Dumper] in raw mode with store and retrieve. Niel was very responsive and the patch is working great. On the [cpan://Parse::RecDescent] side, I read the tutorial and wrote a simple grammar, passed alot of command line strings through it successfully to get the data structure to serialize, serialized it and deserialized it. I got stuck when I realized that [cpan://Parse::RecDescent::Deparse] didn't deparse my data structure into a command line string, but instead deparsed my parser into a grammar (should've rtfm before I got this far, I guess)! Now I could write a function to take my datastructure and turn it into a command line string, but it seems a shame that I've gone to the trouble of writing a grammar to define how to go one direction, but can't use the same grammar to go the other direction. Especially if I intend to change and expand the grammar, I would like that to be the end of it and not have to also change the deparsing function. So, now I have some questions: Academic questions: <ul> <li> Is it necessarily possible to reverse the data through the grammar to get the command line? </li> <li> or is this only possible for special grammars? </li> <li> Is there something I need to in my grammar to make this possible? </li> </ul> Design decisions: <ul> <li> Is there a module that already reverses the parsing of [cpan://Parse::RecDescent] parsers? </li> <li> Is there another module that makes this bi-directionality easier (I'd prefer not to learn another grammar specification syntax, but could)? </li> <li> Is there a module that already does all this soup-to-nuts? </li> </ul> And finally, the infamous "what I've already done". This is grammarharness.pl: <readmore> <c> #/usr/bin/perl -Wl use strict; use warnings; use Parse::RecDescent; use Data::Dumper; use Data::Serializer; my $grammar; my $grammarfile = $ARGV[0]; open my $gf,'<',$grammarfile or die 'bad grammarfile'; while (<$gf>) { $grammar.=$_; } close $gf; print '$grammar is ',"\n",$grammar; $::RD_HINT++; #$::RD_TRACE++; my $parser = new Parse::RecDescent ($grammar) or die 'bad grammar'; my $stringtoparsefile = $ARGV[1]; open my $sf,'<',$stringtoparsefile or die 'bad stringstoparse file'; my $result; my $reresult; #Data::Serializer 0.44 supports raw=> my $serializer = Data::Serializer->new(raw=>'1',serializer => 'XML::Dumper'); my $outfilebasename = 'data'; my $outfileext = 'out'; my $outfileindex = 10; while (<$sf>) { print 'parsing $_: ',$_; if (defined $parser->startrule($_)){ $result = $parser->startrule($_); print Dumper($result); $serializer->store( $result, $outfilebasename.$outfileindex.'.'.$outfileext, '>>' ); $reresult = $serializer->retrieve( $outfilebasename.$outfileindex++.'.'.$outfileext, ); print Dumper($reresult); }else{ print " badstring\n"} } </c> </readmore> This is packagegrammar.txt: <readmore> <c> startrule: commandline{$item{commandline}} commandline: command options {[$item {command},$item{options}]} command: packagecommand {$item{packagecommand}} packagecommand: /(hap)/ | /(hccmrg)/ | /(hup)/ | /(hspp)/ | /(hpp)/ | /(hpg)/ | /(hdp)/ | /(hdlp)/ | /(hcp)/ options: option(s?) option: optionflag optionvalue { [$item{optionflag}, $item{optionvalue}?$item{optionvalue}:1] } optionflag: /(-\w+)/ { $1 } optionvalue: /(\w*)/ { $1 } </c> </readmore> This is packagecommands.txt: <readmore> <c> hap -b hap -b sknxharvest01 hap -b sknxharvest01 -enc testfile.dfo hap -b sknxharvest01 -usr cgowing -pass chaspass hap -badflag hap -prompt hap -b sknxharvest01 -prompt hap -prompt -b sknxharvest01 </c> </readmore> how it works (nothing particularly wrong here; it mostly proves all the working parts without attempting the deparse): <readmore> <c> C:\chas_sandbox\grammars>grammarharness.pl packagegrammar.txt packagecommands.tx t $grammar is startrule: commandline{$item{commandline}} commandline: command options {[$item {command},$item{options}]} command: packagecommand {$item{packagecommand}} packagecommand: /(hap)/ | /(hccmrg)/ | /(hup)/ | /(hspp)/ | /(hpp)/ | /(hpg)/ | /(hdp)/ | /(hdlp)/ | /(hcp)/ options: option(s?) option: optionflag optionvalue { [$item{optionflag}, $item{optionvalue}?$item{op tionvalue}:1] } optionflag: /(-\w+)/ { $1 } optionvalue: /(\w*)/ { $1 } parsing $_: hap -b $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 1 ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', '1' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -b sknxharvest01 $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -b sknxharvest01 -enc testfile.dfo $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-enc', 'testfile' ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-enc', 'testfile' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -b sknxharvest01 -usr cgowing -pass chaspass $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-usr', 'cgowing' ], [ '-pass', 'chaspass' ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-usr', 'cgowing' ], [ '-pass', 'chaspass' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -badflag $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-badflag', 1 ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-badflag', '1' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -prompt $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-prompt', 1 ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-prompt', '1' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -b sknxharvest01 -prompt $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-prompt', 1 ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ], [ '-prompt', '1' ] ] ]; parsing $_: hap -prompt -b sknxharvest01 $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-prompt', 1 ], [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ] ] ]; $VAR1 = [ 'hap', [ [ '-prompt', '1' ], [ '-b', 'sknxharvest01' ] ] ]; C:\chas_sandbox\grammars>type data10.xml <perldata> <arrayref memory_address="0xdee0b8"> <item key="0">hap</item> <item key="1"> <arrayref memory_address="0xd67300"> <item key="0"> <arrayref memory_address="0xdee28c"> <item key="0">-b</item> <item key="1">1</item> </arrayref> </item> </arrayref> </item> </arrayref> </perldata> C:\chas_sandbox\grammars> </c> </readmore> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-632330"> <hr /> #my sig used to say 'I humbly seek wisdom. '. Now it says: use strict; use warnings; I humbly seek wisdom. </div></div>