mrkkrp / mrkkrp/parser-combinators

The Applicative versions of sepEndBy and sepEndBy1 cause infinite loops with Earley

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Dominant language
Haskell
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Description

Main.hs:

import Text.Earley
import Control.Applicative.Combinators

main :: IO ()
main = print $ fullParses (parser grammar) "a;a"

grammar :: Grammar r (Prod r () Char String)
grammar = return $ sepEndBy (token 'a') (token ';')

sepEndBy-bugreport.cabal:

cabal-version:      3.4
name:               sepEndBy-bugreport
version:            0.1.0.0

executable sepEndBy-bugreport
    hs-source-dirs:   .
    main-is:          Main.hs

    build-depends:    base >=4 && <5,
                      Earley ==0.13.0.1,
                      parser-combinators ==1.3.0

This program loops forever. Replacing sepEndBy with sepBy makes it terminate. sepEndBy1 loops, sepBy1 does not. Note that the actual input to parse doesn't matter - the issue happens whenever sepEndBy or sepEndBy1 occurs within the parser.

After consulting with some other people, our best guess is that the problem is that generating an Earley parser requires exploring the entire parse tree, broken only by explicit recursion markers. The Prod type in Earley provides implementations of some and many which creates those explicit markers, so working in terms of them will succeed. sepBy and sepBy1 are implemented in terms of many, so they work with Earley. But sepEndBy and sepEndBy1 do not use some or many, and as a result they create infinite parse trees. At least, that's the guess.

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by running the Main.hs reproduction with sepEndBy and sepEndBy1, using the dependencies in sepEndBy-bugreport.cabal. Inspect the Applicative implementations and Earley interaction to determine why these combinators build an unbounded parse tree. Done means both variants terminate when used within an Earley parser, while sepBy and sepBy1 behavior remains intact.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
haskell
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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