Question: is there a way to load the .ne files in the browser?

I’m considering adding a nearley-based parser to one of the projects I work on (HERITAGE). As it stands now, I can’t keep it client-side only, and have to compile the .ne files server-side, with node.js. Is there a way to do this on the client?

[kach]

1. If you look at the source code for quick-compiler.html, you’ll understand how to compile grammars client-side. Then you can just do that directly in the JS for your project.

window.addEventListener("load", function() {
    var grammarInput = document.getElementById("grammar-input");
    var compileInput = document.getElementById("compile-grammar");
    compileInput.addEventListener("click", function() {
        var grm = grammarInput.value;
        var parser = new nearley.Parser(grammar.ParserRules, grammar.ParserStart);
        parser.feed(grammarInput.value);
        var result = parser.results[0];
        var compiled = Compile(result, {});
        var js = generate(compiled);
        window.open("data:text/javascript;charset=utf-8,"+encodeURIComponent(js));
    }, false);

}, false);

1. Your adblocker catches it as a popup because it tries to open a pop-up with the JS file you’re supposed to download. Just make your adblocker ignore that website via a whitelist or something and you’ll be fine.

[kach]

IF is short for Interactive Fiction, or text-based adventure games. 😃

To clarify, anyone using HERITAGE won’t need node, because you can just give them compiled .ne.js files. Assuming the grammar is fixed, you can even develop HERITAGE without node.

If you insist on being able to develop HERITAGE without node, though, you still have a few options:

1. As you suggested, compile it once and then modify the generated JS file manually — it’s not that difficult once you get used to it.
2. I could write a simple web-based frontend to the compiler, in the style of http://pegjs.org/online, so that you can compile without installing node and then copy the generated JS code to your project.
3. I guess I could add an option in nearley to read a grammar directly from a string and compile it on-the-fly. But I think (1) or (2) are better ideas.

What do you think?