I'm trying to use pyparsing to parse function calls in the form:
f(x, y)
That's easy. But since it's a recursive-descent parser, it should also be easy to parse:
f(g(x), y)
That's what I can't get. Here's a boiled-down example:
from pyparsing import Forward, Word, alphas, alphanums, nums, ZeroOrMore, Literal
lparen = Literal("(")
rparen = Literal(")")
identifier = Word(alphas, alphanums + "_")
integer = Word( nums )
functor = identifier
# allow expression to be used recursively
expression = Forward()
arg = identifier | integer | expression
args = arg + ZeroOrMore("," + arg)
expression << functor + lparen + args + rparen
print expression.parseString("f(x, y)")
print expression.parseString("f(g(x), y)")
And here's the output:
['f', '(', 'x', ',', 'y', ')']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tmp.py", line 14, in <module>
print expression.parseString("f(g(x), y)")
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pyparsing-1.5.6-py2.6.egg/pyparsing.py", line 1032, in parseString
raise exc
pyparsing.ParseException: Expected ")" (at char 3), (line:1, col:4)
Why does my parser interpret the functor of the inner expression as a standalone identifier?
The definition of arg should be arranged with the item that starts with another at the left, so it is matched preferentially:
arg = expression | identifier | integer