Is it easier to write a recursive-descent parser using an EBNF or a BNF?

Posted by Vivin Paliath on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Vivin Paliath
Published on 2010-03-24T18:03:25Z Indexed on 2010/03/24 18:13 UTC
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I've got a BNF and EBNF for a grammar. The BNF is obviously more verbose. I have a fairly good idea as far as using the BNF to build a recursive-descent parser; there are many resources for this. I am having trouble finding resources to convert an EBNF to a recursive-descent parser. Is this because it's more difficult? I recall from my CS theory classes that we went over EBNFs, but we didn't go over converting them into a recursive-descent parser. We did go over converting BNF's into a recursive-descent parser.

The reason I'm asking is because the EBNF is more compact.

From looking at the EBNF's in general, I notice that terms enclosed between { and } can be converted into a while loop. Are there any other guidelines or rules?

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