SUO: Parsing Techniques - A Practical Guide
I came across a good introductory book on parsing, which goes well
beyond the introductory level, but in a very readable format. One of
its best features is that it is now out of print, and the authors have
put the entire book on the WWW, in both PostScript and PDF formats.
Following is the original citation:
Dick Grune and Ceriel J.H. Jacobs ,
_Parsing Techniques - A Practical Guide_,
Ellis Horwood, Chichester, England, 1990; ISBN 0 13 651431 6
And following is its current URL:
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~dick/PTAPG.html
I would recommend it to anyone who is working on or thinking about
working on parsing programs for any natural or artificial language,
including controlled natural languages.
Following is a note from the web site.
John Sowa
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Description
This 320-page book treats parsing in its own right, in greater depth
than is found in most computer science and linguistics books. It offers
a clear, accessible, and thorough discussion of many different parsing
techniques with their interrelations and applicabilities, including
error recovery techniques. Unlike most books, it treats (almost) all
parsing methods, not just the popular ones. See Preface + Introduction
and/or Table of Contents for a quick impression.
The book features a 48 page systematic bibliography containing over 400
entries. A general context-free parser is supplied (Figure 12.1 and
Figure 12.2) and discussed in detail.
No advanced mathematical knowledge is required; the book is based on
an intuitive and engineering-like understanding of the processes
involved in parsing, rather than on the set manipulations used in
practice.
About the authors
Dick Grune is a lecturer of Programming Languages and Compiler
Construction at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and is, with
Henri Bal, coauthor of the text book Programming Language Essentials.
Ceriel Jacobs is in charge of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit and is
presently involved in the construction of compilers for the Orca
project.