Gherkin

Fast Gherkin parser based on Ragel.

Gherkin is the language that has evolved out of the Cucumber project. Cucumber currently uses Treetop, which is too slow for larger projects.

This project will not include code to build an AST. Instead, this parser will have an API that makes it possible to plug in a builder that can buld an AST.

Notes

Ragel supports Ruby, but it’s much slower than C. The ruby target will be used for development. The final version will use C for MRI and Java for JRuby.

Ragel links

• www.complang.org/ragel/
• dev.sipdoc.net/attachments/2/ragel_talk.pdf
• lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1125
• www.zedshaw.com/essays/ragel_state_charts.html
• www.devchix.com/2008/01/13/a-hello-world-for-ruby-on-ragel-60/

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

• Fork the project.
• Make your feature addition or bug fix.
• Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but

   bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
  

• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright

Copyright © 2009 Aslak Hellesøy. See LICENSE for details.