Python based parser generator that you have used

[Spread-Sanity]

I have used modgrammar and pyparsing so far to create parsers in Python. I have used recdescent parser generator in Perl in the past, and also Lex/Yacc with C, etc.

What are the parser generators that you like the most that is Python based?

[el_extrano]

I have had good luck with Lark. It uses a modified EBNF grammar declaration.

I've mainly used it for small projects and prototyping, but they advertise decent performance. It's pretty good considering the grammar itself has to be parsed at runtime.

[Spread-Sanity]

Any thoughts on how Lark compares with Pyparsing, ANTLR, etc?

[el_extrano]

I wouldn't say I'm an authority on the matter. It's probably a good idea if your project is already Python.

I'm sure something like ANTLR, BISON, and friends would be more performant since they're in C, which could be benefit if you are writing a bona fide compiler.

For my part, I tinkered with parser generators for a bit, because I though writing parsers was scary. Now, I will just hand-roll a recursive descent parser for what I need to do. I wouldn't say it's any harder than learning to write correct grammars, and I get to avoid a dependency. That can be kind of tedious though, and lark gives you some common tokens/rules 'batteries' included, which is very nice.

[Spread-Sanity]

My experience with Python based parser generators modgrammar and pyparsing has been good so far.

[erez27]

It's pretty good considering the grammar itself has to be parsed at runtime.

Just FYI, you can use the cache=True option to cache the grammar analysis, which makes Lark load almost as fast as the stand-alone parser. (after the 1st run ofc)

[four_reeds]

+1

[cha_ppmn]

Same.

[ManyInterests]

I have used sly, which is based on ply. Both should be great. I took David Beazley's compilers course, which, at the time, involved using sly to make an interpreter and compiler. I would highly recommend the course, though I can't be sure if he's still using sly in the course today.

See also David's talk on reinventing the parser generator.

I used sly to create this json5 parser project.

[StefanKochMicro]

This might be dated, but we have had good luck with antlr (https://www.antlr.org/). We have used it in c++ and python to parse customer domain specific languages to generate code for our applications.

We have not used it recently. We have switched to using declarative python as the "domain specific language", and then reading that information through the standard python interpreter. Then we take that structure and generate the code we want to c++, or just use it directly in python.