Jump Instructions

Jump Instructions

The jump instruction skips all tokens until a concrete target token is found.

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When to Use Jumps

Jumps are intended for comments and string literals — cases where the content between delimiters is irrelevant to the grammar and may contain tokens (like brackets) that would confuse the parser.

Prefer Sub-bodies over jumps for all other cases. A jump skips over everything until the target token, which can quickly lead to problems if the target token appears earlier than expected or is missing entirely.

Use Case	Recommended
Comments (//, /* */)	Jump
String literals ('...', "...")	Jump
Structured content (blocks, parameters, expressions)	Sub-body

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Syntax

-->> stopToken

Rule: The target must be a concrete literal — e.g., \n, ), ;, BEGIN, */.

The syntax -->> <| a <||> b |> is supported — the jump stops at whichever alternative is found first. However, the or-statement must not contain an empty branch, since the jump needs a concrete token to stop at.

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Examples

Pattern	Matches
// -->> \n	Single-line comment: from // to end of line
/* -->> */	Block comment: from /* to */
' -->> '	String literal: from ' to '

Single-line comment

<*comment_line*> // -->> \n <*>

Multi-line comment

<*comment_block*> /* -->> */ <*>

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Next: Variables — Capturing tokens and controlling scope.