Towards a Faster Incremental Packrat Parser

• Main Authors: Guillermo, Jerwin Mark L, Fernandez, Proceso L, Jr
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2019
• Subjects: Grammar; Tuning; Indexes; Computer science; Urban areas; Syntactics; software engineering; packrat parsing; incremental packrat parsing; experimental algorithmics; code tuning; algorithm tuning; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/discs-faculty-pubs/296; https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8850934
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This work is an extension to the research done by Dubroy and Warth [1] on incremental packrat parsing. It attempts to further decrease the parse time of the incremental parser using two techniques from experimental algorithmics: algorithm and code tuning. Two modifications were introduced to the original incremental packrat parser: reduction of copy operations, and the use of an array of overlapping entries. Initial results showed that there is a significant difference between the parse times of the original parser (μ = 15.64ms, σ = 69.29ms) and the modified parser (μ = 4.60ms, σ = 69.53ms), with a t-score of t(890)=52.26 and a p -value of 9.41 ×10 -274 . This means that faster parse times are achieved when using the modified parser.