Partial matching in a simple Raku program

Question

I've created a simple program based on the Raku parsefile example provided here. The contents of my Raku file are:

grammar Names {
  token TOP  { [<name><.ws>]+ }
  token name { <:alpha>+ }
}                                                                               
                                                                                
say Names.parsefile('names.txt');

The contents of names.txt is below:

Andrea
John

Running this minimal program indicates a successful parse has been achieved:

｢Andrea
John
｣
 name => ｢Andrea｣
 name => ｢John｣

If I now add something which will not be parsed by the name token (i.e. 99999999):

Andrea
99999999
John

...running the program then outputs only Nil. Is there a way to modify the program so that I could still find that "Andrea" and "John" have been parsed by the name token successfully?

Answer 1

Probably comb, match or contains is better in your case.

my token name { <:alpha>+ };

say './raku/names.txt'.IO.comb(/<name>/);
say slurp('./raku/names.txt').match(/<name>/,:g);
say './raku/names.txt'.IO.words.grep: *.contains: /^<name>$/;

(Andrea John)
(｢Andrea｣
 name => ｢Andrea｣ ｢John｣
 name => ｢John｣)
(Andrea John)

If you really want grammar, you could redefine <ws>.

grammar Names {
    rule TOP  { ^ <name> +  }
    token name { <:alpha>+ }
    token ws { <-alpha>* }
    #or more general  token ws { [<!before <name>>.]* }
}

say Names.parsefile: './raku/names.txt';

｢Andrea
99999999
John
｣
 name => ｢Andrea｣
 name => ｢John｣