This file documents all notable changes to PEG.js. The releases follow semantic versioning.
Released: August 30, 2015
Tracing support. Parsers can be compiled with support for tracing their progress, which can help debugging complex grammars. This feature is experimental and is expected to evolve over time as experience is gained. More details
Infinite loop detection. Grammar constructs that could cause infinite loops in generated parsers are detected during compilation and cause errors.
Improved location information API. The line
, column
, and offset
functions available in parser code were replaced by a single location
function which returns an object describing the current location. Similarly, the line
, column
, and offset
properties of exceptions were replaced by a single location
property. The location is no longer a single point but a character range, which is meaningful mainly in actions where the range covers action’s expression. More details
Improved error reporting. All exceptions thrown when generating a parser have associated location information. And all exceptions thrown by generated parser and PEG.js itself have a stack trace (the stack
property) in environments that support Error.captureStackTrace
.
Strict mode code. All PEG.js and generated parser code is written using JavaScript strict mode.
Labels behave like block-scoped variables. This means parser code can see labels defined outside expressions containing code.
Empty sequences are no longer allowed.
Label names can’t be JavaScript reserved words.
Rule and label names can contain Unicode characters like in JavaScript.
Rules have to be separated either by ;
or a newline (until now, any whitespace was enough).
The PEG.js grammar and all the example grammars were completely rewritten. This rewrite included a number of cleanups, formatting changes, naming changes, and bug fixes.
The parser object can now be accessed as parser
in parser code.
Location information computation is faster.
Added support for Node.js >= 0.10.x, io.js, and Edge. Removed support for Node.js < 0.10.x.
Fixed left recursion detector which missed many cases.
Fixed escaping of U+0100—U+107F and U+1000—U+107F in generated code and error messages.
Renamed parse
and SyntaxError
to peg$parse
and peg$SyntaxError
to mark them as internal identifiers.
Released: December 24, 2013
Completely rewrote the code generator. Among other things, it allows optimizing generated parsers for parsing speed or code size using the optimize
option of the PEG.buildParser
method or the --optimize
/-o
option on the command-line. All internal identifiers in generated code now also have a peg$
prefix to discourage their use and avoid conflicts. [#35, #92]
Completely redesigned error handling. Instead of returning null
inside actions to indicate match failure, new expected
and error
functions can be called to trigger an error. Also, expectation inside the SyntaxError
exceptions are now structured to allow easier machine processing. [#198]
Implemented a plugin API. The list of plugins to use can be specified using the plugins
option of the PEG.buildParser
method or the --plugin
option on the command-line. Also implemented the --extra-options
and --extra-options-file
command-line options, which are mainly useful to pass additional options to plugins. [#106]
Made offset
, line
and column
functions, not variables. They are now available in all parsers and return lazily-computed position data. Removed now useless trackLineAndColumn
option of the PEG.buildParser
method and the --track-line-and-column
option on the command-line.
Added a new text
function. When called inside an action, it returns the text matched by action's expression. [#131]
Added a new $
operator. It extracts matched strings from expressions.
The ?
operator now returns null
on unsuccessful match.
Predicates now always return undefined
.
Replaced the startRule
parameter of the parse
method in generated parsers with more generic options
parameter. The start rule can now be specified as the startRule
option. The options
parameter can be also used to pass custom options to the parser because it is visible as the options
variable inside parser code. [#37]
The list of allowed start rules of a generated parser now has to be specified explicitly using the allowedStartRules
option of the PEG.buildParser
method or the --allowed-start-rule
option on the command-line. This will make certain optimizations like rule inlining easier in the future.
Removed the toSource
method of generated parsers and introduced a new output
option of the PEG.buildParser
method. It allows callers to specify whether they want to get back the parser object or its source code.
The source code is now a valid npm package. This makes using development versions easier. [#32]
Generated parsers are now ~25% faster and ~62%/~3% smaller (when optimized for size/speed) than those generated by 0.7.0.
Requires Node.js 0.8.0+.
bin/pegjs
now outputs just the parser source if the value of the --export-var
option is empty. This makes embedding generated parsers into other files easier. [#143]
Changed the value of the name
property of PEG.GrammarError
instances from “PEG.GrammarError” to just “GrammarError”. This better reflects the fact that PEG.js can get required with different variable name than PEG
.
Setup prototype chain for PEG.GrammarError
correctly.
Setup prototype chain for SyntaxError
in generated parsers correctly.
Fixed error messages in certain cases with trailing input [#119]
Fixed code generated for classes starting with \^
. [#125]
Fixed too eager proxy rules removal. [#137]
Added a license to all vendored libraries. [#207]
Converted the test suite from QUnit to Jasmine, cleaning it up on the way.
Travis CI integration.
Various internal code improvements and fixes.
Various generated code improvements and fixes.
Various example grammar improvements and fixes.
Improved README.md
.
Converted CHANGELOG
to Markdown.
Released: April 18, 2012
Added ability to pass options to PEG.buildParser
.
Implemented the trackLineAndColumn
option for PEG.buildParser
(together with the --track-line-and-column
command-line option). It makes the generated parser track line and column during parsing. These are made available inside actions and predicates as line
and column
variables.
Implemented the cache
option for PEG.buildParser
(together with the --cache
command-line option). This option enables/disables the results cache in generated parsers, resulting in dramatic speedup when the cache is disabled (the default now). The cost is breaking the linear parsing time guarantee.
The current parse position is visible inside actions and predicates as the offset
variable.
Exceptions thrown by the parser have offset
, expected
and found
properties containing machine-readable information about the parse failure (based on a patch by Marcin Stefaniuk).
Semantic predicates have access to preceding labels. [GH-69]
Implemented case-insensitive literal and class matching. [GH-34]
Rewrote the code generator — split some computations into separate passes and based it on a proper templating system (Codie).
Rewrote variable handling in generated parsers in a stack-like fashion, simplifying the code and making the parsers smaller and faster.
Adapted to Node.js 0.6.6+ (no longer supported in older versions).
Dropped support for IE < 8.
As a result of several optimizations, parsers generated by 0.7.0 are ~6.4 times faster and ~19% smaller than those generated by 0.6.2 (as reported by /tools/impact
).
Fixed reported error position when part of the input is not consumed. [GH-48]
Fixed incorrect disjunction operator in computeErrorPosition
(original patch by Wolfgang Kluge).
Fixed regexp for detecting command-line options in /bin/pegjs
. [GH-51]
Generate more efficient code for empty literals (original patch by Wolfgang Kluge).
Fixed comment typos (patches by Wolfgang Kluge and Jason Davies). [GH-59]
Fixed a typo in JavaScript example grammar. [GH-62]
Made copy & paste inclusion of the PEG.js library into another code easier by changing how the library is exported.
Improved the copyright comment and the “Generated by...” header.
Replaced Jakefile
with Makefile
.
Added make hint
task that checks all JavaScript files using JSHint and resolved all issues it reported. All JavaScript files and also generated parsers are JSHint-clean now.
Fixed output printed during test failures (expected value was being printed instead of the actual one). Original patch by Wolfgang Kluge.
Added a /tools/impact
script to measure speed and size impact of commits.
Various generated code improvements and fixes.
Various internal code improvements and fixes.
Improved README.md
.
Released: August 20, 2011
Reset parser position when action returns null
.
Fixed typo in JavaScript example grammar.
Released: April 14, 2011
--ascii
option when generating a minified version.Released: April 14, 2011
Rewrote the command-line mode to be based on Node.js instead of Rhino — no more Java dependency. This also means that PEG.js is available as a Node.js package and can be required as a module.
Version for the browser is built separately from the command-line one in two flavors (normal and minified).
Parser variable name is no longer required argument of bin/pegjs
— it is module.exports
by default and can be set using the -e
/--export-var
option. This makes parsers generated by /bin/pegjs
Node.js modules by default.
Added ability to start parsing from any grammar rule.
Added several compiler optimizations — 0.6 is ~12% faster than 0.5.1 in the benchmark on V8.
Split the source code into multiple files combined together using a build system.
Jake is now used instead of Rake for build scripts — no more Ruby dependency.
Test suite can be run from the command-line.
Benchmark suite can be run from the command-line.
Benchmark browser runner improvements (users can specify number of runs, benchmarks are run using setTimeout
, table is centered and fixed-width).
Added PEG.js version to “Generated by...” line in generated parsers.
Added PEG.js version information and homepage header to peg.js
.
Generated code improvements and fixes.
Internal code improvements and fixes.
Rewrote README.md
.
Released: November 28, 2010
Fixed a problem where “SyntaxError: Invalid range in character class.” error appeared when using command-line version on Widnows (GH-13).
Fixed wrong version reported by bin/pegjs --version
.
Removed two unused variables in the code.
Fixed incorrect variable name on two places.
Released: June 10, 2010
Syntax change: Use labeled expressions and variables instead of $1
, $2
, etc.
Syntax change: Replaced :
after a rule name with =
.
Syntax change: Allow trailing semicolon (;
) for rules
Semantic change: Start rule of the grammar is now implicitly its first rule.
Implemented semantic predicates.
Implemented initializers.
Removed ability to change the start rule when generating the parser.
Added several compiler optimizations — 0.5 is ~11% faster than 0.4 in the benchmark on V8.
PEG.buildParser
now accepts grammars only in string format.
Added “Generated by ...” message to the generated parsers.
Formatted all grammars more consistently and transparently.
Added notes about ECMA-262, 5th ed. compatibility to the JSON example grammar.
Guarded against redefinition of undefined
.
Made bin/pegjs
work when called via a symlink (issue #1).
Fixed bug causing incorrect error messages (issue #2).
Fixed error message for invalid character range.
Fixed string literal parsing in the JavaScript grammar.
Generated code improvements and fixes.
Internal code improvements and fixes.
Improved README.md
.
Released: April 17, 2010
Improved IE compatibility — IE6+ is now fully supported.
Generated parsers are now standalone (no runtime is required).
Added example grammars for JavaScript, CSS and JSON.
Added a benchmark suite.
Implemented negative character classes (e.g. [^a-z]
).
Project moved from BitBucket to GitHub.
Code generated for the character classes is now regexp-based (= simpler and more scalable).
Added \uFEFF
(BOM) to the definition of whitespace in the metagrammar.
When building a parser, left-recursive rules (both direct and indirect) are reported as errors.
When building a parser, missing rules are reported as errors.
Expected items in the error messages do not contain duplicates and they are sorted.
Fixed several bugs in the example arithmetics grammar.
Converted README
to GitHub Flavored Markdown and improved it.
Added CHANGELOG
.
Internal code improvements.
Released: March 14, 2010
Wrote README
.
Bootstrapped the grammar parser.
Metagrammar recognizes JavaScript-like comments.
Changed standard grammar extension from .peg
to .pegjs
(it is more specific).
Simplified the example arithmetics grammar + added comment.
Fixed a bug with reporting of invalid ranges such as [b-a]
in the metagrammar.
Fixed --start
vs. --start-rule
inconsistency between help and actual option processing code.
Avoided ugliness in QUnit output.
Fixed typo in help: parserVar
→ parser_var
.
Internal code improvements.
Released: March 8, 2010
pegjs-
prefix to the name of the minified runtime file.Released: March 8, 2010
Added Rakefile
that builds minified runtime using Google Closure Compiler API.
Removed trailing commas in object initializers (Google Closure does not like them).
Released: March 8, 2010