[ragel-users] Re: Question about nested state charts

[Zed A. Shaw]

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:11:30 -0500
Adrian Thurston <thurs... at cs.queensu.ca> wrote:

> 
> Hi Zed,
> 
> I think nesting is a really good idea. Though Ragel can't build your 
> machine exactly the way you've specified it. It's a limitation of the 
> Ragel language and not of the underlying machines. When the end of a 
> comma-separated list of machines is found Ragel tries to resolve all 
> epsilon transitions inside it. So the epsilon drawn to Aborting is 
> resolved when the inner join is complete, only the Aborting label 
> doesn't exist at that time. What you want is for it to be resolved on 
> the outer join but the language doesn't give you a way to say that.
<snip>

Ok, this is possible since I can also set a state variable and then alter the transition on final with an action.  There aren't a whole lot of states right now by I like the idea of making is smaller.

One thing that I believe is *kind* of missing from the state chart idea is "inheriting transitions".  I don't know if I like the idea, but when I showed it to someone, they immediately thought that having a nested chart be able to let a parent chart handle common events or transitions would complete the state chart.

> About the duplication ... I've actually been meaning to add a feature 
> for importing machine definitions. Though I wanted to wait until I 
> finished rewriting the parsers before I start adding to them. I'm 
> currently migrating to Ragel/Kelbt. In the meantime duplication is all 
> there is ... which I'm aware is quite painful to many coders.

Oooh, kelbt looks interesting.  Downloaded it and will play with it.  My favorite parser generator is Lemon, mostly because it has insane debugging capabilities.  Please mimick Lemon this way :-)

One thing though, and more of a style choice, but I *hate* this syntax:

define conditionals
...
end define

As you mentioned, I hate repetition, so making me type "define" twice is really really annoying since your parser has got to be able to know that "end" is enough.  Especially since it looks like you can't do nesting.  Even if you can, the end keyword should be enough to close off the statement.

Anyway, i'll play with kelbt a bit.  If you're looking for a realworld use on it, I know folks looking for powerful scaner/parser combos for several open source projects.  I'll get them to try it out too.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu
http://www.zedshaw.com/
http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502 -- The Mongrel Book
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/
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