Hello everyone,

Version 2.5 of the GOLD Parser Builder was just released.


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Major Changes in Version 2.5
----------------------------

Version 2.5 of the GOLD Parser Builder was just released. The changes
are as follows:

* The functionality of Program Templates was expanded significantly.
The templates contain a number of new tags and blocks that allow the
entire contents of the Symbol Table, Rule Table, Character Set Table,
DFA Table and LALR Table to be exported. Please see
http://www.devincook.com/goldparser/.../doc/templates for more
information.

* The 'Create a Skeleton Program' window now displays a 'scanning'
message. When the window is first loaded, it scans the contents of the
\templates folder. This can take a few moments.

* The format of the file created by the 'Export to XML' tool was
modified slightly.

* Made a few minor tweaks to the LALR State Browser.

* Fixed the double-paste bug. When text was pasted into the Grammar
Editor, it would be pasted twice.


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About the GOLD Parsing System
-----------------------------

The GOLD Parser is a free, pseudo-open source, parser generator that
you can use to develop your own compilers and emulators.

Modern bottom-up parsers use a Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) for
identifying different classes of tokens and a LALR(1) state machine to
parse them. The actual LALR(1) and DFA algorithms are easy to implement
since they rely on tables to determine actions and state transition.
Consequently, it is the computing of these tables that is both
time-consuming and complex.

Unlike compiler-compilers, the GOLD Parser does not require you to
embed your grammar directly into your source code. Instead, the Builder
analyzes the grammar description and saves the parse tables to a
separate file. This information can be, subsequently, loaded by the
actual parser engine and used.

As of this writing, GOLD supports:

* ANSI C
* C#
* Delphi 3 & 5
* Java
* Python
* Visual Basic .NET
* Visual Basic 5 & 6
* Visual C++

* All ActiveX languages
* All .NET Languages


Please visit http://www.DevinCook.com/GOLDParser. Have a great day and
happy programming,

- Devin Cook