Updated the documentation for EGT files

A few of the charts in the documentation had errors.

GOLD version 5.2 released

This update contains bug fixes and a few new features:

• Added a 'Previous States' tab in the DFA State Browser. It works just like the tab in the LALR State Browser.)
• Added a Nullable and First Set Table window. This information is used to construct the LALR State Table. It should be useful for students learning parsing theory.)
• The Symbol Information Window now displays relevant data. Nonterminals and terminals have different meaningful properties. The window now will only display the ones that apply to the symbol in question.)
• Fixed a bug when declaring hexadecimal set ranges. The algorithm had a flaw resulting in -1 (FFFFFFFF) in most cases.)
• Fixed a bug that affected using a Group End Terminal in productions. This should be allowed in all cases, but the system was vulnerable to the order of declaration in the grammar.)
• Fixed a bug in the Create Webpage utility. The system was duplicating group lexical information. The same text was being repeated for each group.)
  

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

GOLD version 5.1.2 released

This update contains a revised Test Window as well as some minor enhancements and bug fixes:

• Added Shift+Home and Shift+End to the editor. The text editor now supports Shift+Home, to select to the end of a line, and Shift+Home to select to the beginning of a line.
• Revamped the Test Window layout. Before, the tabs (containing the actions and tree) were displayed below the test text. This wasted 'screen real estate'. Now, the two sections are side by side.
• Replace Window bug fixed. The system was taking an extremely long time to do a simple Find-Replace on the grammar. It will work now.
• Test Windows now is drawing the parse tree. A last minute change in 5.1.1 caused it not to be drawn.
• Test Window is using color in the Actions table. This was an oversight when 5.1 was released.

• Test Window now reports LALR shifts. In the last version, shifts were never reported in the Actions Table.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

GOLD version 5.1.1 released

This update contains a minor bug fix:

• Users were unable to save custom color schemes. Now, when you save a custom color scheme, the system will save it in the user's 'AppData' folder. So, color schemes are located in both the application's Colors folder and the user's AppData folder.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

GOLD version 5.1.0 released

• Added LALR Conflict Reports. The system now tracks the origin of lookahead symbols in LALR Configurations. When a conflict occurs, the LALR State Browser will generate a report. It contains the 'why' symbols can follow a reduced production.
• Export Webpage tool was overhauled. The new 'Export Webpage' tool can automatically generate lists of 'reserved' words, symbols, and information about lexical groups. You can also export tables. The generated webpage can be a great way of starting a language spec.
• Added new dialog windows. The new dialog windows are basic, but allow customized button text and a, very useful, 'show this next time' text box. This will allows users to make windows, they find annoying, go away.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

The last host was unreliable and the e-mail system was in disarray.

I just uploaded a command line version of the Builder and 3 of the tools.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

There is a bug that affects productions read when the grammar is first analyzed. Due to the bug, only unique symbols are allowed in production handles.

This update includes a new, faster, design for the Builder and Engine.

• Version 5.0 parsing algorithm was implemented. This change gives the developer great flexibility over lexical behavior. Lexical groups and the ability to control the attributes of terminals were added.
•  Added a tab to the Symbol Detail Window. The new tab displays the productions which use the symbol as its head. This was an oversight and should have been added before.
•  Added filters to the Create a Skeleton Program window. The filters can be used to display programs templates for a specific engine and/or target language. This should keep the window from becoming overly complex.
•  The grammar editor now uses smart indenting. When you hit enter, the new line will be automatically indented. This is a common feature in most program development software.
•  Updated the code box. I made some internal changes to improve speed. In particular, the changes were designed to improve the efficiency of drawing the screen.
•  Improved program templates. The program templates can now export lexical groups (given their addition to the GOLD system). Also, the user can specify %Col=nn% in the markup code. This will cause spaces to be inserted until column 'nn' is reached. This is good for aligning code for readability.
•  Improved the YACC/Bison import utility. The updated version will successfully load YACC grammars that contain embedded C code. Before, the system would sometimes fail depending on the content of the code. Also, the YACC file name is now placed in the imported grammar's parameters.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

Also look at Changes in Version 5

With the release of Builder 5.0, the algorithms used by the Engines are vastly improved. This implementation of the Engine implements the new logic and supports the EGT file format.

Download it from the Engine 5 .NET page.

Ralph Iden has created a Java implementation of the 5.0 Engine. He also create a program template (included with the Builder) what will greatly speed up writing Java-based parser.

Download it from the Engine 5 Java page.

I made some changes of the website - mainly the location of folders and the cascading style changes. The overall look of the website didn't change that much.

I should have registered this site long ago. Anyway, all the site material will be found here. The old site contains meta-refresh tags so no existing links would be broken.

New! "BSN" Engine was released for the .NET platform!

Arsène von Wyss released a new version of the Engine for the .NET programming languages.

This implementation of the Engine allows the developer to map a semantic action classes directly to the grammar's terminals or reductions. The result of this approach is the creation of a functional semantic AST without the intermediate token-based AST representation.

You can get a copy on the BSN Engine Page

GOLD WIKI is here!

Nick Sabalausky created a new website for GOLD Wiki. This site is basically a Wikipedia dedicated to GOLD and its contributors

GOLD WIKI website

GOLD version 4.1.1 was released

• Second attempt to fix a bug in saved CGT file headers. My attempt to fix the previous bug caused another one. This bug involved a conversion from a string literal to a floating point.
• Added the ability change how grammar files are encoded. Normally, grammars are saved in either ASCII or UTF-8 depending if they contain a character outside the 0...127 range. You can now specify if you always want UTF-8 or UTF-16 to be used instead. This was placed in the Options Window.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

Arsène von Wyss released a new version of the JSON grammar

New! "Goldie" Engine was released for the D Programming Language

Nick Sabalausky released a new engine for the D Programming Language. Goldie (pronounced "goal D") works on both Windows and Linux. It should also work in Mac-OS X and FreeBSD. The engine features, the following:

• New Tool: StaticLang: Creates new "static-style" languages for enhanced compile-time error checking. Languages can be embedded directly into your app using the StaticLang tool (don't have to load a CGT file at run-time, although you still can) .
• New Tool: JsonViewer: Not officially part of Goldie, but an enhanced version of JsonViewer is included that adds a special Parse Tree Mode for inspecting the relationship between a source and a treerepresenting the source (such as the parse tree).
• New Tool: GenDocs: Simple HTML preprocessor intended for generating documentation.
• Complete documentation has been created.
• Major improvements to API for dealing with parsing errors.
• Greatly improved handling of Unicode

You can get a copy on the D Engine Page

GOLD version 4.1 released

Version 4.1 contains a number of bug fixes and some minor new features (nothing exciting).

Get a copy from the Builder Download page.

• When printing grammars, you can now exclude line numbers.
• The Export Webpage utility can save the source grammar with contextual coloring.
• Grammars are now automatically saved using UTF-8 (if needed).
• Fixed a bug in the header of saved CGT files.
• The automatic definition for Whitespace changed. In 4.0, whitespace was automatically defined as {All Whitespace}+.

HUGE UPDATE! GOLD version 4 released

Version 4.0 of the Builder is finally complete. The new version contains a large number of improvements over 3.4. These include a complete rewrite of the source code and numerous GUI improvements.

You can get a copy from the Builder Download page.

• The code was completely revamped. The source code for the Builder was converted from Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic .NET. In the process of converting the code, most of the objects and arrays were further optimized. The overall speed of the application improved.
• New 24-pixel icons. The older 16x16 icons are getting a tad too small for many computer screens. The new icons also look quite a bit better! :-).
• Contextual coloring in the grammar editor. The grammar editor now colors different grammar elements based on type. This is fairly common in most software development applications.
• When a conflict occurs, each item will be marked in the DFA/LALR browser. Beforehand, the system simply reported which symbols caused the conflict, but did not mark the productions that caused the conflict.

NEWS! GOLD version 4 preview

This is a work-in-progress picture for Version 4. The core code is complete at this point, but I still need to finish the GUI and features. First version of 4 will not have a ton of new features - since it is basically a port from the original version.

That being said, the new version will have:

• 24x24 pixel icons
• Far better grammar editor - complete with contextual coloring, line numbers, etc...
• Better data tables

NEWS! GOLD version 4 in the works.

Hello all. I was called onto some other projects and didnt' have time to work on GOLD for a while. Anyway, I am in the process of creating version 4 of the Builder. Hopefully, I will have this out in December.

I should have some screenshots soon. My apologies for the lack of updates.

You can download a copy from the Java Engine Download page