Does the theory and algorithms of compiler design also apply to data formats?

Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:54:30 +0000

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From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:54:30 +0000
Organization: Compilers Central
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Hello Compiler Experts!


The books that I've read always talk about applying compiler theory and
algorithms to programming languages. But there are other kinds of languages
such as XML, JSON, Comma-Separated-Values (CSV). And aren't data formats such
as JPEG, Powerpoint (ppt), Excel (xls) also languages? Does the rich theory
and vast algorithms of compilers apply to these non-programming languages? Has
anyone created a Bison parser for JPEG? For JSON? For CSV?


/Roger
[You could, but for the most part their syntax is so simple that a
formal parser would be overkill. For example, JSON has a handful of
atoms and only two data structures, a sequential list and a key:value
object. Everything else is the semantics. The Microsoft formats like
docx, xlsx, and pptx are in fact zip files containing XML files. Unzip
one and take a look.
Also look at XDR, a widely used network data format and rpcgen which compiles
an XDR description into code to read and write it. -John]

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