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4: How the Parser Works
Yacc turns the specification file into a C program, which parses the input according to the specification given. The algorithm used to go from the specification to the parser is complex, and will not be discussed here (see the references for more information). The parser itself, however, is relatively simple, and understanding how it works, while not strictly necessary, will nevertheless make treatment of error recovery and ambiguities much more comprehensible.
The parser produced by Yacc consists of a finite state machine with a stack. The parser is also capable of reading and remembering the next input token (called the lookahead token). The "current state" is always the one on the top of the stack. The states of the finite state machine are given small integer labels; initially, the machine is in state 0, the stack contains only state 0, and no lookahead token has been read.
The machine has only four actions available to it, called shift , reduce , accept , and error . A move of the parser is done as follows:
The shift action is the most common action the parser takes. Whenever a shift action is taken, there is always a lookahead token. For example, in state 56 there may be an action: IF shift 34 which says, in state 56, if the lookahead token is IF, the current state (56) is pushed down on the stack, and state 34 becomes the current state (on the top of the stack). The lookahead token is cleared.
The reduce action keeps the stack from growing without bounds. Reduce actions are appropriate when the parser has seen the right hand side of a grammar rule, and is prepared to announce that it has seen an instance of the rule, replacing the right hand side by the left hand side. It may be necessary to consult the lookahead token to decide whether to reduce, but usually it is not; in fact, the default action (represented by a ``.'') is often a reduce action.
Reduce actions are associated with individual grammar rules. Grammar rules are also given small integer numbers, leading to some confusion. The action . reduce 18 refers to "grammar rule" 18, while the action IF shift 34 refers to state 34.
Suppose the rule being reduced is A : x y z ; The reduce action depends on the left hand symbol (A in this case), and the number of symbols on the right hand side (three in this case). To reduce, first pop off the top three states from the stack (In general, the number of states popped equals the number of symbols on the right side of the rule). In effect, these states were the ones put on the stack while recognizing x , y , and z , and no longer serve any useful purpose. After popping these states, a state is uncovered which was the state the parser was in before beginning to process the rule. Using this uncovered state, and the symbol on the left side of the rule, perform what is in effect a shift of A. A new state is obtained, pushed onto the stack, and parsing continues. There are significant differences between the processing of the left hand symbol and an ordinary shift of a token, however, so this action is called a goto action. In particular, the lookahead token is cleared by a shift, and is not affected by a goto. In any case, the uncovered state contains an entry such as: A goto 20 causing state 20 to be pushed onto the stack, and become the current state.
In effect, the reduce action ``turns back the clock'' in the parse, popping the states off the stack to go back to the state where the right hand side of the rule was first seen. The parser then behaves as if it had seen the left side at that time. If the right hand side of the rule is empty, no states are popped off of the stack: the uncovered state is in fact the current state.
The reduce action is also important in the treatment of user-supplied actions and values. When a rule is reduced, the code supplied with the rule is executed before the stack is adjusted. In addition to the stack holding the states, another stack, running in parallel with it, holds the values returned from the lexical analyzer and the actions. When a shift takes place, the external variable yylval is copied onto the value stack. After the return from the user code, the reduction is carried out. When the goto action is done, the external variable yyval is copied onto the value stack. The pseudo-variables $1, $2, etc., refer to the value stack.
The other two parser actions are conceptually much simpler. The accept action indicates that the entire input has been seen and that it matches the specification. This action appears only when the lookahead token is the endmarker, and indicates that the parser has successfully done its job. The error action, on the other hand, represents a place where the parser can no longer continue parsing according to the specification. The input tokens it has seen, together with the lookahead token, cannot be followed by anything that would result in a legal input. The parser reports an error, and attempts to recover the situation and resume parsing: the error recovery (as opposed to the detection of error) will be covered in Section 7.
It is time for an example! Consider the specification %token DING DONG DELL %% rhyme : sound place ; sound : DING DONG ; place : DELL ;
When Yacc is invoked with the -v option, a file called y.output is produced, with a human-readable description of the parser. The y.output file corresponding to the above grammar (with some statistics stripped off the end) is: state 0 $accept : \_rhyme $end DING shift 3 . error rhyme goto 1 sound goto 2 state 1 $accept : rhyme\_$end $end accept . error state 2 rhyme : sound\_place DELL shift 5 . error place goto 4 state 3 sound : DING\_DONG DONG shift 6 . error state 4 rhyme : sound place\_ (1) . reduce 1 state 5 place : DELL\_ (3) . reduce 3 state 6 sound : DING DONG\_ (2) . reduce 2 Notice that, in addition to the actions for each state, there is a description of the parsing rules being processed in each state. The \_ character is used to indicate what has been seen, and what is yet to come, in each rule. Suppose the input is DING DONG DELL It is instructive to follow the steps of the parser while processing this input.
Initially, the current state is state 0. The parser needs to refer to the input in order to decide between the actions available in state 0, so the first token, DING , is read, becoming the lookahead token. The action in state 0 on DING is is ``shift 3'', so state 3 is pushed onto the stack, and the lookahead token is cleared. State 3 becomes the current state. The next token, DONG , is read, becoming the lookahead token. The action in state 3 on the token DONG is ``shift 6'', so state 6 is pushed onto the stack, and the lookahead is cleared. The stack now contains 0, 3, and 6. In state 6, without even consulting the lookahead, the parser reduces by rule 2. sound : DING DONG This rule has two symbols on the right hand side, so two states, 6 and 3, are popped off of the stack, uncovering state 0. Consulting the description of state 0, looking for a goto on sound , sound goto 2 is obtained; thus state 2 is pushed onto the stack, becoming the current state.
In state 2, the next token, DELL , must be read. The action is ``shift 5'', so state 5 is pushed onto the stack, which now has 0, 2, and 5 on it, and the lookahead token is cleared. In state 5, the only action is to reduce by rule 3. This has one symbol on the right hand side, so one state, 5, is popped off, and state 2 is uncovered. The goto in state 2 on place , the left side of rule 3, is state 4. Now, the stack contains 0, 2, and 4. In state 4, the only action is to reduce by rule 1. There are two symbols on the right, so the top two states are popped off, uncovering state 0 again. In state 0, there is a goto on rhyme causing the parser to enter state 1. In state 1, the input is read; the endmarker is obtained, indicated by ``$end'' in the y.output file. The action in state 1 when the endmarker is seen is to accept, successfully ending the parse.
The reader is urged to consider how the parser works when confronted with such incorrect strings as "DING DONG DONG" , "DING DONG" , "DING DONG DELL DELL" , etc. A few minutes spend with this and other simple examples will probably be repaid when problems arise in more complicated contexts.