Hi Brent, thanks for the illustrative example.
For example, consider parsing a file which contains a positive integer, followed by that many letters. For example,
3xyz 12abcdefghijkl
are two instances of this format. In order to parse this, a monadic interface is required, since the result of parsing the number must be used to decide how many things to parse after that.
I see, but as long as I want to parse context free grammars, it is sufficient?
However, for *many* purposes, an Applicative parsing interface is all you need. And if Applicative is enough, it's usually nicer/more elegant than Monad. (And using the least powerful/most general thing that works for your purpose is usually good style anyway.)
I agree, and EBNF practically translates itself (modulo some try lookaheads) best regards, Matthias -- __________________________________________________________ ___ __ __ Dipl. Inf. Matthias Guedemann / __\/ _\ /__\ Computer Systems in Engineering / / \ \ /_\ Otto-von-Guericke Universitaet Magdeburg / /___ _\ \//__ Tel.: 0391 / 67-19359 \____/ \__/\__/ __________________________________________________________