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A sentence generator for testing parsers

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Abstract

A fast algorithm is given to produce a small set of short sentences from a context free grammar such that each production of the grammar is used at least once. The sentences are useful for testing parsing programs and for debugging grammars (finding errors in a grammar which causes it to specify some language other than the one intended). Some experimental results from using the sentences to test some automatically generated simpleLR(1) parsers are also given.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Indiana University, 47401, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Paul Purdom

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  1. Paul Purdom
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Purdom, P. A sentence generator for testing parsers. BIT 12, 366–375 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01932308

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01932308

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