Top-Down Parser

A simple top-down parser written in JavaScript. Every so often I need to write a parser, and keep forgetting how the recursion works. This is a simple- and general-as-possible implementation that I can refer back to in the future.

To use the parser, call the buildParser() function with a single string argument containing the grammar. Each production rule in the grammar should be on a separate line, and the symbol should be followed by the character sequence ->, and then by the substitutions. The symbol | is used as a delimiter on the RHS of a rule if there are multiple valid substitutions.

By default the start symbol is the text START and ε is used to represent an empty string, alternate values can be supplied when calling buildParser().

I have used several ES6 language features in the code, so this won't work in older browsers.

Example

const parser = buildParser(`
    START -> EXPR
    EXPR  -> NUM | NUM OP EXPR
    NUM   -> 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
    OP    -> + | - | * | /
`);

parser.parse('1 + 2')

Will return:

{
    'remainder : '',
    'tree' : {
        'START' : [
            {'EXPR' : [
                {'NUM' : ['1']},
                {'OP' : ['+']},
                {'EXPR' : [
                    {'NUM' : ['2']},
                ]}
            ]}
        ]
    }
}