Additional Target Languages Return to Ragel 7
It was previously reported that Ragel 7 will support only a small set of host languages. I'm happy to report that support for extra host languages has been added back to Ragel 7.
When I dropped support I had an open problem in the form of managing code cloning in multiple fronteneds. Since ragel is embedded in a host language, there is a need for host-language specific parsing. Developing a frontend for each host language was a real problem and I could not see a suitable solution. It became too much to manage.
With some new advances in Colm I'm able to now combine grammar fragments and reduction actions to compose frontends using a common ragel grammar and a small set of rules specific to the frontend. This makes maintenace of the additional frontends as new features are added much simpler and allows me keep this aspect of the project going.