The Compiler Generator Coco/R

Hanspeter Mössenböck, Markus Löberbauer, Albrecht Wöß, University of Linz

Last update: December 3, 2018


Documentation | Coco/R for C#, Java, C++, F#, VB.Net, Delphi, Swift, Oberon, other languages | projects using Coco/R | Contributions | Cookbook | Tools | Mailing list

Coco/R is a compiler generator, which takes an attributed grammar of a source language and generates a scanner and a parser for this language. The scanner works as a deterministic finite automaton. The parser uses recursive descent. LL(1) conflicts can be resolved by a multi-symbol lookahead or by semantic checks. Thus the class of accepted grammars is LL(k) for an arbitrary k.

There are versions of Coco/R for different languages (see below). The latest versions from the University of Linz are those for C#, Java and C++, which can be downloaded from this site. An older (non-reentrant) version of Coco/R for C# and Java can be obtained from here.

Coco/R is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (slightly extended).


New: If you used Coco/R for a project that might also be of interest to others, please send us a link to a Web page describing the project. We will put those references online here.


Documentation and license

license.txt GNU General Public License (slightly extended)
UserManual.pdf Language specification and user guide
DataStructures.pdf Description of the data structures in Coco/R (for those who want to understand the implementation of Coco/R)
TestSuite.zip A test suite for Coco/R (see readme.pdf)
JMLC'03 paper LL(1) Conflict Resolution in a Recursive Descent Compiler Generator
Tutorial Powerpoint slides of a Coco/R tutorial given at JMLC'06 (by Hanspeter Mössenböck)
another Tutorial about using Coco/R (by Henrik Teinelund)
AST.pdf, AST.zip Tutorial showing how to build abstract syntax trees with Coco/R

Coco/R for C#

Coco.exe the executable
Scanner.frame the frame file from which the scanner is generated
Parser.frame the frame file from which the parser is generated
CocoSourcesCS.zip the sources (put them in a subdirectory and run build.bat)
log.html change log

Samples
Taste.zip the sources of the sample compiler (Taste) described in the user manual.
CSharp.ATG a sample ATG for C# (a template) that produces a complete scanner and parser for C# source code. Add your own semantic actions to customize your parser. (last update 2005-06-29)
CSParser.cs the source code for the main class of a simple sample C# parser that uses the scanner and parser generated from the above CSharp.ATG. It only reports the number of syntax errors found in any parsed C# source.
CSharp2.ATG a sample ATG for C# 2.0 (C# Language Specification Working Draft 2.7, Jun, 2004) that produces a complete scanner and parser for C# 2.0 source code. Add your own semantic actions to customize your parser. (last update 2007-03-20)
CS2Parser.cs the source code for the main class of a simple sample C# parser that uses the scanner and parser generated from the above CSharp2.ATG. It only reports the number of syntax errors found in any parsed C# 2.0 source.
CSharp3.atg a sample ATG for C# 3.0 (C# Language Specification Version 3.0, 2007) that produces a complete scanner and parser for C# 3.0 source code. Add your own semantic actions to customize your parser. Attention, to use this grammar the default Scanner.frame and Parser.frame must be updated as described in the top of the grammar. (last update 2010-10-01)
C.atg a sample ATG for ANSI C 89 as specified in flash-gordon.me.uk/ansi.c.txt. In order to resolve LL(1) conflicts you need a symbol table. A very simple example for such a symbol table (just giving you an idea) can be downloaded from here.

The C# version of Coco/R is also available from https://www.nuget.org/packages/CocoR/


Coco/R for Java

Coco.jar an archive containing all classes of Coco/R
Scanner.frame the frame file from which the scanner is generated
Parser.frame the frame file from which the parser is generated
CocoSourcesJava.zip the sources (put them in a subdirectory and run build.bat)
log.html change log
Eclipse Plug-in Integration into the development environment Eclipse
IntelliJ Plug-in Integration into the development environment IntelliJ IDEA (Thomas Scheinecker)

Samples
Java.ATG a sample ATG for Java 1.4 (a template) that produces a complete scanner and parser for Java source code. Add your own semantic actions to customize your parser.
JavaParser.java the source code for the main class of a simple sample Java parser that uses the scanner and parser generated from the above Java.ATG. It only reports the number of syntax errors found in any parsed Java source.
JavaGrammar.html HTML documentation of the Java grammar used in Java.ATG.

Coco/R for C++

ported and maintained by Markus Löberbauer and Csaba Balazs

Coco.exe the executable
Scanner.frame the frame file from which the scanner is generated
Parser.frame the frame file from which the parser is generated
CocoSourcesCPP.zip the sources (put them in a subdirectory and run build.bat)
log.html change log

Samples
Taste.zip the sources of the sample compiler (Taste) described in the user manual.

Coco/R for F#

ported and maintained by Alexandre Pereira

Readme.txt A readme file with the F# specific differences from the original Coco/R version.
Coco.exe the executable
Scanner.frame the frame file from which the scanner is generated
Parser.frame the frame file from which the parser is generated
CocoSourcesFSharp.zip the sources (put them in a subdirectory and run build_cocoFsharp.bat)
log.html change log

Samples
Example_Arith.zip the sources of a sample compiler

Coco/R for VB.Net

ported and maintained by Adrian Devries

Coco.exe the executable
Scanner.frame the frame file from which the scanner is generated
Parser.frame the frame file from which the parser is generated
CocoSourcesVB.zip the sources (put them in a subdirectory and run build.cmd)
log.html change log

Samples
Taste.zip the sources of the sample compiler (Taste) described in the user manual.

Coco/R for Delphi

There are several versions of Coco under Delphi, ported and maintained by different people:

Delphi by Martin C. Harvey
Delphi by Serge Voloshenyuk
Delphi by Mike Reith
Delphi by Patrick Connors

Coco/R for Swift

ported and maintained by Michael Griebling

download from GitHub. Also: sample compiler for Taste.

Coco/R for Oberon

Coco.Cod Oberon archive with the sources of Coco/R; this version is not further developed and differs from the C# and Java versions. It is also non-reentrant.

Other versions of Coco/R

These versions were ported from the original version of Coco/R and have a slightly different input language and functionality.

Pascal, Modula-2, Java, C# by Pat Terry
Python by Ron Longo
C/C++ by Frankie Arzu
Ada by Oleksandr Havva
Ruby by Zen Spider Software
Unicon by Jeremy Powers

Projects using Coco/R

Many projects use Coco/R to parse data e.g. logs, configurations, and user input. Here we list some great projects doing so. If you used Coco/R for a project that might also be of interest to others, please send us a link to a Web page describing the project.

Tool and producerOne sentence summary
Boogie - Microsoft Research Boogie, an intermediate verification language.
aGrUM - Gonzales, Wuillemin, et al aGrUM, A GRaphical Universal Modeler.
MQWeb - Franky Braem MQWeb is a web-based tool to manage Websphere MQ.
MiceOnABeam - Antonius Frentis MiceOnABeam is a UML-based visual scripting tool that generates LSL code for the online virtual world of Second Life.
VaP - PEC Petschacher Consulting VaP is a tool for civil engineering and more to calculate statistical metrics, and make analysis thereof.
CocoXml - Charles Wang Implementation of Coco/R in C, and Coco/R generated XML tag syntax parser.
ACPUL - Victor Kozub A simple and safe programming language implemented with CocoR. See also the platform Animation CPU.
VADL - Andreas Krall The Vienna Architecture Description Language (VADL) as a powerful processor description language implemented with Coco/R.

Books

Hanspeter Mössenböck has written a book Compilerbau that includes a chapter on Coco/R and its use in various scenarios. Throughout the book, attributed grammars are used for describing translation processes. The book is in German, but an English version is in preparation.

There are also other excellent books about using Coco/R for compiler construction:
Pat Terry:
- Compiling with C# and Java
- Compilers and Compiler Generators - An Introduction with C++