Text.Trifecta.Tutorial

This module provides a short introduction to get users started using Trifecta. The key takeaway message is that it’s not harder, or even much different, from using other parser libraries, so for users familiar with one of the many Parsecs should feel right at home.

The source of this file is written in a literate style, and can be read top-to-bottom.

Documentation

importDocumentation :: docDummy

First, we import Trifecta itself. It only the core parser definitions and instances. Since Trifecta on its own is just the parser and a handful of instances; the bulk of the utility functions is actually from a separate package, parsers, that provides the usual parsing functions like manyTill, between, and so on. The idea behind the parsers package is that most parser libraries define the same generic functions, so they were put into their own package to be shared. Trifecta reexports these definitions, but it’s useful to keep in mind that the documentation of certain functions might not be directly in the trifecta package.

data Expr

In order to keep things minimal, we define a very simple language for arithmetic expressions.

Constructors

Add Expr Expr

expr + expr

Lit Integer

1, 2, -345, …

Instances

Show Expr

Defined in Text.Trifecta.Tutorial

Methods

showsPrec :: Int -> Expr -> ShowS

show :: Expr -> String

showList :: [Expr] -> ShowS

parseExpr :: Parser Expr

The parser is straightforward: there are literal integers, and parenthesized additions. We require parentheses in order to keep the example super simple as to not worry about operator precedence.

It is useful to use tokenizing functions to write parsers. Roughly speaking, these automatically skip trailing whitespace on their own, so that the parser isn’t cluttered with skipWhitespace calls. symbolic for example parses a Char and then skips trailing whitespace; there is also the more primitive char function that just parses its argument and nothing else.

examples :: docDummy

We can now use our parser to convert a String to an Expr,

parseString parseExpr mempty "(1 + (2 + 3))"

Success (Add (Lit 1) (Add (Lit 2) (Lit 3)))

When we provide ill-formed input, we get a nice error message with an arrow to the location where the error occurred:

parseString parseExpr mempty "(1 + 2 + 3))"

(interactive):1:8: error: expected: ")"
(1 + 2 + 3))<EOF>
       ^