# Fwd: First release of Rubyfront

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 17, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741 "2006-02-17T18:27:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/1 "2006-02-17T18:27:37Z")

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For those interested in things Ruby and grammatical, grammarian Xue  
Yong Zhi presents:

----- Forwarded message from removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid -----  
Date: 17 Feb 2006 05:22:01 -0000  
From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
Reply-To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
Subject: [grammarians] First release of Rubyfront  
To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

I am glad to announce the first release of rubyfront (a ruby parser  
powered by antlr).

Even though this is the first release, rubyfront can parse entire  
ruby standard library (over 1500 .rb files).

To download or check out more details about rubyfront, please go to  
[http://seclib.blogspot.com/2006/02/first-release-of-rubyfront.html](http://seclib.blogspot.com/2006/02/first-release-of-rubyfront.html)

Rubyfront uses BSD license. I am going to write more about it on my  
blog later.

Xue Yong Zhi  
[http://seclib.blogspot.com](http://seclib.blogspot.com)

* * *

Rubygrammar-grammarians mailing list  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
[http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rubygrammar-grammarians](http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rubygrammar-grammarians)

----- End forwarded message -----

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 7:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/2 "2006-02-18T07:28:47Z")

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In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid), [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> I am glad to announce the first release of rubyfront (a ruby parser  
> blog later.
> 
> Xue Yong Zhi  
> [http://seclib.blogspot.com](http://seclib.blogspot.com)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Rubygrammar-grammarians mailing list  
> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> [http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rubygrammar-grammarians](http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rubygrammar-grammarians)

This seems applicable to JRuby (since it’s in ANTLR which is in Java).  
How  
else might it be used?

Phil

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/3 "2006-02-18T15:48:55Z")

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DÅ?a Sobota 18 FebruÃ¡r 2006 07:28 Phil T. napÃ­sal:

> This seems applicable to JRuby (since it’s in ANTLR which is in Java).

Not necessarily, it should be useful for all sorts of toolchains - it’s  
just  
not possible to invoke it from a Ruby app. It might also be interesting  
to  
port this to pure Ruby once the ANTLR Ruby backend matures. (Correct me  
if  
already did since I last checked.) Having a proper Ruby parser in Ruby  
might  
make writing tools like RDoc much easier.

David V.

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/4 "2006-02-18T20:18:36Z")

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On Sat, 2006-02-18 at 23:46 +0900, David V. wrote:

> Not necessarily, it should be useful for all sorts of toolchains -  
> it’s just not possible to invoke it from a Ruby app. It might also be  
> interesting to port this to pure Ruby once the ANTLR Ruby backend  
> matures. (Correct me if already did since I last checked.)

I think it’s pretty mature now actually, though I haven’t played with  
it. The Ruby backend is part of ANTLR v3, though. yawl’s grammar is  
for v2.

Martin (the author of the v3 Ruby backend) has a partial v3 Ruby grammar  
in TRGP SVN now; I don’t know whether we’ll ultimately polish that up,  
or port yawl’s grammar to v3. At the moment, Ter’s leaning towards the  
latter, as it’s more complete. But we’ll see how it goes.

> Having a proper Ruby parser in Ruby might make writing tools like RDoc  
> much easier.

That’s the plan. Not to mention Ruby implementations like JRuby.

I’ve actually got some evil ideas for a Ruby-in-Javascript  
implementation (Ruby in the browser, yay!), but I’m not touching that  
one until we have a decent parser waiting in the wings.

-mental

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/5 "2006-02-18T21:49:21Z")

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On Sun, 2006-02-19 at 04:38 +0900, Phil T. wrote:

> Quite true. It’s been our ‘holy grail’ for several years now. I was not aware  
> taht ANTLR could generate a pure Ruby parser.

The Ruby backend will be new with ANTLR v3.

> …of course there is Ripper (not sure what the current status is) and other  
> similar projects like ParseTree, nodeTree, etc.

Ripper, ParseTree, etc more or less piggyback on the existing parser in  
the current Ruby interpreter.

-mental

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/6 "2006-02-18T20:39:43Z")

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In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid),  
David V. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> already did since I last checked.) Having a proper Ruby parser in Ruby migh=  
> t=20  
> make writing tools like RDoc much easier.

Quite true. It’s been our ‘holy grail’ for several years now. I was  
not aware  
taht ANTLR could generate a pure Ruby parser.

…of course there is Ripper (not sure what the current status is) and  
other  
similar projects like ParseTree, nodeTree, etc.

Phil

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 1:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-first-release-of-rubyfront/69741/7 "2006-02-19T13:09:31Z")

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DÅ?a Sobota 18 FebruÃ¡r 2006 20:38 Phil T. napÃ­sal:

> Quite true. It’s been our ‘holy grail’ for several years now. I was not  
> aware taht ANTLR could generate a pure Ruby parser.
> 
> …of course there is Ripper (not sure what the current status is) and  
> other similar projects like ParseTree, nodeTree, etc.

Not to diss all those projects, but ANTLR has that “major” ting to it.  
Even if  
we had other flawless pure ruby parsers, having an ANTLR grammar around  
for  
all manners of “Ruby in not-Ruby” weirdness seems to definately to have  
perks  
by itself.

I wonder if mental is petting a white persia cat plotting his evil  
plan…

David V.
