Am 14.12.2004 um 09:20 schrieb Andreas Raab:
>
> Well, the real issue which I'd like to see fixed is error reporting. I 
> have found that SmaCC parsers are notoriously bad at it - except from 
> "token not expected" it doesn't tell you anything about what is wrong 
> (and it doesn't even tell you the token - so if you don't know how the 
> next characters compose you are at a total loss). For example, 
> consider the following erronous expressions:
>
>            SmaCC                  Squeak
> a := .      Token not expected     Expression expected
> 3 foo: +5   Token not expected     Argument expected
> [:foo ^3+4] Token not expected     Vertical bar expected
> [^42        Token not expected     Period or right bracket expected
>
>
> For a newbie this is deeply problematic. It's hard enough to get this 
> stuff right even if the compiler tells you what it expects - but if 
> you only know that there is "something wrong here" (perhaps a missing 
> \item? ;-))) it's almost impossible to find out.
>

SmaCC has support for providing good error messages... It's just not 
used in the new compiler. I'l put it on the TODO.

      Marcus