Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!news.glorb.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Sylvain Schmitz Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Does someone have a reference to the statement that almost all practical languages are LL? Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 23:17:39 +0200 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 29 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <12-05-032@comp.compilers> References: <12-05-030@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com X-Trace: leila.iecc.com 1338413351 38565 64.57.183.58 (30 May 2012 21:29:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 21:29:11 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: parse, theory Posted-Date: 30 May 2012 17:29:11 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:661 Chris F Clark wrote: > I'm writing up a small whitepaper(*) where I want to discuss LL and > LR grammars. In it I want to sidestep the issue of the fact that > there are LL grammars that are not LR These would be hard to find. You probably mean LL grammars which are not LALR. > and vice-versa. Thus, I simply want to quote the conventional wisdom, > i.e. that nearly any (artificial) language in use has an LL grammar. > However, I'd like to reference someone else who has made that > statement, so that it simply isn't a bald assertion without proof in > my paper. It's instead a reference to a bald assertion without proof > in someone else's paper (or web page or interview or whatever) ;-) Terence Parr's papers should provide this kind of argument. > With lesser importance, I wouldn't mind a reference to a proof that > all deterministic context free languages have an LR(1) grammar. This was already proven in Knuth's original paper on LR parsing, _On the Translation of Languages from Left to Right_, Information and Control 8:607--639 (1965), Section V. -- Regards, Sylvain