JavaCC (Java Compiler Compiler) is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

parser generator In computer science, a compiler-compiler or compiler generator is a programming tool that creates a parser, interpreter, or compiler from some form of formal description of a programming language and machine. The most common type of compiler- ...

and

lexical analyzer In computer science, lexical analysis, lexing or tokenization is the process of converting a sequence of characters (such as in a computer program or web page) into a sequence of ''lexical tokens'' ( strings with an assigned and thus identified ...

generator written in the

Java programming language Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers ''write once, run anywh ...

. JavaCC is similar to

yacc Yacc (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler) is a computer program for the Unix operating system developed by Stephen C. Johnson. It is a Look Ahead Left-to-Right Rightmost Derivation (LALR) parser generator, generating a LALR parser (the part of a com ...

in that it generates a

parser Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lati ...

from a

formal grammar In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) describes how to form strings from a language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe ...

written in EBNF notation. Unlike yacc, however, JavaCC generates top-down parsers. JavaCC can resolve choices based on the next ''k'' input tokens, and so can handle LL(''k'') grammars automatically; by use of "lookahead specifications", it can also resolve choices requiring unbounded look ahead. JavaCC also generates lexical analyzers in a fashion similar to

lex Lex or LEX may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Lex'', a daily featured column in the ''Financial Times'' Games * Lex, the mascot of the word-forming puzzle video game ''Bookworm'' * Lex, the protagonist of the word-forming puzzle video ga ...

. The tree builder that accompanies it, JJTree, constructs its trees from the bottom up. JavaCC is licensed under a

BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...

History

In 1996,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

released a parser generator called ''Jack''. The developers responsible for ''Jack'' created their own company called Metamata and changed the ''Jack'' name to JavaCC. Metamata eventually became part of WebGain. After WebGain shut down its operations, JavaCC was moved to its current home.

Uses

Software built using JavaCC includes: *

Apache Derby Apache Derby (previously distributed as IBM Cloudscape) is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by the Apache Software Foundation that can be embedded in Java programs and used for online transaction processing. It has a 3.5 ...

BeanShell BeanShell is a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with object scripting language features, written in Java. It runs in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), dynamically executes standard Java syntax and extends it with common scripting c ...

FreeMarker Apache FreeMarker is a free Java-based template engine, originally focusing on dynamic web page generation with MVC software architecture. However, it is a general purpose template engine, with no dependency on servlets or HTTP or HTML, and i ...

* PMD *

Vaadin Vaadin () is an open-source web application development platform for Java. Vaadin includes a set of Web Components, a Java web framework, and a set of tools that enable developers to implement modern web graphical user interfaces (GUI) using the Jav ...

Apache Lucene Apache Lucene is a free and open-source search engine software library, originally written in Java by Doug Cutting. It is supported by the Apache Software Foundation and is released under the Apache Software License. Lucene is widely used as ...

* JavaParser *

Judoscript Judoscript is a general purpose programming language designed primarily for scripting language, scripting tasks on the Java platform. It was conceived and developed by James Jianbo Huang (), starting in late 2001. Judoscript was one of the first ...

References

External links

*{{Official website
Java Compiler Compiler (JavaCC) - The Java Parser Generator

JavaCC's New Official Website by April 2017JavaCC TutorialJavaCC FAQA JavaCC book - Generating Parsers with JavaCC
Parser generators Java development tools Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Software using the BSD license

History

Uses

See also

References

External links