Haskell Parsec EOF

Question

I have a file containing many of the following data format:

Dan Clark’s Profile Photo
Member Name
Dan Clark  2nd degree connection 2nd
Member Occupation
Founder and Headmaster at Some Company, LLC
Nina blalba’s Profile Photo
Member Name
Nina blabla  2nd degree connection 2nd
Member Occupation
Consultant - GAmes executive search

My parser to parse the above file:

module Main where

import           Control.Applicative
import           Control.Monad
import           Text.ParserCombinators.Parsec hiding (many, (<|>))

data Contact = Contact {
  name :: String,
  occupation :: String,
  company :: String

                       } deriving Show

matchContact :: Parser Contact
matchContact = do
  name <- many anyChar
  char '\''
  string "s Profile Photo"
  char '\n'
  string "Member Name"
  char '\n'
  string name
  many anyChar
  char '\n'
  string "Member Occupation"
  char '\n'
  job <- many anyChar
  try $ string " at "
  company <- many anyChar
  try (char '\n')
  return $ Contact name job company

main = do
  c <- parseFromFile (many matchContact <* eof) "contacts.txt"
  print c

There are many issues such as the data are not regular. But the most urgent one is that I always run into the error at the last line of the input file:

Left "contacts.txt" (line 8670, column 12):
unexpected end of input
expecting "'"

How to fix this?

Answer 1

The first instance you attempt many anyChar, the parser will happily parse all the rest of the file into the string name, since everything that follows clearly fulfills the criterion any character (including the newline characters). That's clearly not what you want.

Use manyTill, or restrict the choice of permitted characters so the name will end at the appropriate place.