parseki

Parseki is a cross-language parsing toolkit designed to help developers construct parsers for programming languages, data formats, and configuration languages. It emphasizes readability, modularity, and performance, aiming to provide a practical balance between expressiveness and simplicity for both small tools and larger projects.

The toolkit centers on a grammar specification language that describes tokens and rules, a set of reusable parser components, and a runtime capable of incremental and streaming parsing. It supports multiple parsing strategies and integrates lexical analysis with syntactic rules to streamline parser development.

Parseki provides bindings for several host languages, enabling integration into diverse ecosystems. Commonly used bindings include Python, JavaScript, and Rust, allowing parsers to be embedded in applications or built as stand-alone tooling.

History and impact: Parseki was released by an open-source community project in the early 2020s. Major milestones include version 1.0 in 2022 and ongoing improvements to error reporting and performance. It has seen adoption in projects that require lightweight DSLs or custom data formats.

Reception and limitations: Advocates cite faster iteration and clearer grammar authorship compared with traditional parser generators. Critics note a smaller ecosystem of grammars and tools, and that users may prefer more mature, feature-rich systems for complex languages.

See also: Parser generator, Parsing expression grammar, LL parser, PEG, Lexical analysis, Formal language.