How to use recursion in python to parse method body from java code?

Question

I have a java code and i need to parse it in python.I am using regex in python for this purpose. I was successfully able to find method names , but to find method body i need to write regular expression with conditions. for ex. code i was parsing?

class abc
{
 public void main()
 {
     //some code

      if(blabla)
      {

      }
      else
      {

       }
       //some code

   }
public static int method1(int asd,int bad)
{
    //body
}

}

I need output as [(int,method1,"body"),('void',main,"body")] So I wrote regular expression like r'[public|private|protected]\s+[static]\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\(.*\)\n\{' to find method name ,but how to find body as it may contain several '{','}'?

regular expressions aren't the appropriate tool for this job. Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems." -- Jamie Zawinski — user177800
– user177800, Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 15:06

score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 15:09:08Z

2

You aren't going to be successful with regular expressions. What you need is an actual parser.

The parser I would recommend is pyparsing, it is easy to use and understand.

If you need more expressive parsing there is always ANTLR which has grammars for Java already built and outputs python code easily.

edited Mar 10, 2014 at 15:09

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 14:51

user177800

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2 Comments

rushikesh Over a year ago

but is there any regx to support this like recursion or condition based regx?

user177800 Over a year ago

What part of you aren't going to be successful with regular expressions, you need an actual parser isn't clear?

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