S-expressions: Difference between revisions
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The reader should read a single but nested S-Expression from a string and store it in a suitable datastructure (list, array, etc). Newlines and other whitespace may be ignored unless contained within a quoted string. () inside quoted strings are not interpreted, but treated as part of the string. |
The reader should read a single but nested S-Expression from a string and store it in a suitable datastructure (list, array, etc). Newlines and other whitespace may be ignored unless contained within a quoted string. () inside quoted strings are not interpreted, but treated as part of the string. |
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Languages that support this may treat unquoted strings as symbols. |
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The reader should be able to read the following input |
The reader should be able to read the following input |
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The writer should be able to take the produced list and turn it into a new S-Expression. |
The writer should be able to take the produced list and turn it into a new S-Expression. |
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Strings that don't contain whitespace or parentheses () don't need to be quoted in the resulting S-Expression, but as a simplification, any string may be quoted. |
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Revision as of 14:33, 15 October 2011
S-Expressions are one convenient way to parse and store data.
Write a simple reader and writer for S-Expressions that handles quoted and unquoted strings, integers and floats.
The reader should read a single but nested S-Expression from a string and store it in a suitable datastructure (list, array, etc). Newlines and other whitespace may be ignored unless contained within a quoted string. () inside quoted strings are not interpreted, but treated as part of the string.
Languages that support this may treat unquoted strings as symbols.
The reader should be able to read the following input <lang lips>((data "quoted data" 123 4.5)
(data ("(more" "data)" 123) (4.5)))</lang>
and eg. in python produce a list as:
<lang python>[["data", "quoted data", 123, 4.5]
["data", ["(more", "data)", 123], [4.5]]]</lang>
The writer should be able to take the produced list and turn it into a new S-Expression. Strings that don't contain whitespace or parentheses () don't need to be quoted in the resulting S-Expression, but as a simplification, any string may be quoted.