What is JavaCC?

JavaCC is short for Java Compiler Compiler. It is a parser or scanner generator for Java.

Java Compiler Compiler [tm] (JavaCC [tm]) is the most popular parser generator for use with Java [tm] applications. A parser generator is a tool that reads a grammar specification and converts it to a Java program that can recognize matches to the grammar. In addition to the parser generator itself, JavaCC provides other standard capabilities related to parser generation such as tree building (via a tool called JJTree included with JavaCC), actions, debugging, etc.

You can find a lot of language grammar and AST on its site too. I see that C++ and Java 1.5 grammar are there. JavaScript isn’t there. But I find out that Dojo toolkit’s JSLinker provides an ECMAScript 262 one. That is to say, you can create parser and parse C++, Java or JavaScript sources into your AST for any uses. Lots of great features can be imagined.

I spent about a week learning and using JavaCC. I completed a parser for an IDL language named CAR. I also built an Eclipse editor using the generated AST parser. Bang, all things seems working well: keyword hight-lighting, outline view, error probing, … Great toolkit!

Using JavaCC is quite simple, just download javacc-4.0.zip and unzip it, then following its examples tutorial. I sugguest you to start with JavaGrammars and VTransformer examples, as they are about Java grammar.

I think, later, given opportunity, I will try JavaCC out on other projects. Maybe my Java2Script compiler would be benefited from JavaCC.

P.S. Update:
There is a JavaCC Eclipse Plugin project, you can download the plugin to help you writing your syntax file.