From: "ako..." <akonsu@...>
Date: 2005-12-09T06:57:36+09:00
Subject: Re: New guy... Intoduction and first question on some direct

a parser is a big project for a beginner. parsing is a process of
translating a text stream in to a memory representation of the contents
of the stream. to do that, you will have to be able to split the stream
in to chunks called tokens, and then check if the combination of these
tokens is valid, that is if this combination corresponds to the so
called grammar for your language. there is a theory behind all that. if
your file was simpler and for example had each line precisely
identifying a data item like this for example:

/1/1/dataidentifier/1/type = 1

then you could just scan the file line by line and get all you need.
there are tools used to generate parsers. the original ones are called
lex, and yacc. lex would split your stream in to tokens, and yacc would
check if the resulting sequence of tokens satisfies the grammar. i am
not sure if there are parser generators for ruby, although it is
comparatively easy to write them because they are based on a sound
theory.

hope this helps.
konstantin