Jiffy is a parser-combinator library written in Swift, heavily inspired by FParsec, which in turn originates from Parsec.
Included is a work-in-progress parser for the Doge Serialized Object Notation, the premier textual data representation of our time. See: DSON.swift.
Are fantastic, and you can read all about them here: "Dive into parser combinators." Whoever wrote that must be a pretty OK dude. Gist: you can quickly and easily write composable, readable parsers for complicated grammars. Here, for example, is a parser for floating-point numbers:
let pdigit = oneOf(Array("01234567"))
let pdigit1 = oneOf(Array("1234567"))
let pceil = string("0") <|> (concat <%> (s <%> pdigit1) <*> manyChar(pdigit1))
let pmantissa = concat <%> oneChar(".") <*> many1Char(pdigit)
let pexponent = (string("very") <|> string("VERY")) *> (concat <%> oneCharOf(Array("+-")) <*> many1Char(pdigit))
let pnumber = toNumber <%> opt(oneChar("-")) <*> pceil <*> opt(pmantissa) <*> opt(pexponent)
(If IEEE were to replace the e keyword with the DOGE very -- and I think we can all agree they should.)
If you allow for some leeway, I hope to convince you that the code is a trivial transcription of this diagram:
Swift is a new language with a compiler that crashes and hangs a lot. Generics and typeclasses I mean protocols are ideal for something like parser combinators, don't you think? Having custom operators doesn't hurt either.
If you're coming from Haskell or F#, there's one slight change you should be aware of: <$> isn't a valid operator name in Swift, so I went with <%> instead. Mnemonic: they're right next to each other!
Yours,
Hao.