Eclector Manual

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Online Lisp Meeting Presentation on Eclector

Abstract

The Common Lisp reader is a collection of functions and variables for turning sequences of characters into s-expressions, which are described in Chapter 2 of the specification. While some aspects of the behavior of the reader can be customized, many parts are internal to each Common Lisp implementation and thus inaccessible to portable programs. Eclector is a portable reader implementation which is set apart by 1) providing very detailed error reporting (for humans and programs) 2) allowing recovery from (almost) all syntax errors 3) allowing customization of far more aspects than other readers 4) providing a mechanism for constructing parse results with source information. This presentation introduces the Eclector project and explains the customization mechanisms built into its architecture. Everything is considered from the perspective of a user of the Eclector reader, so its implementation is not discussed. The features mentioned above are further illustrated in several (hopefully) interesting and useful demonstrations.

Presentation Slides

Recorded Video (Youtube)