What is the fastest way to Parse a line in Delphi?

Question

I have a huge file that I must parse line by line. Speed is of the essence.

Example of a line:

Token-1   Here-is-the-Next-Token      La         


        

Answer 1

This begs another question - How big? Give us a clue like # of lines or # or Mb (Gb)? Then we will know if it fits in memory, needs to be disk based etc.

At first pass I would use my WordList(S: String; AList: TStringlist);

then you can access each token as Alist[n]... or sort them or whatever.

Answer 2

Here is a lame ass implementation of a very simple lexer. This might give you an idea.

Note the limitations of this example - no buffering involved, no Unicode (this is an excerpt from a Delphi 7 project). You would probably need those in a serious implementation.

{ Implements a simpe lexer class. } 
unit Simplelexer;

interface

uses Classes, Sysutils, Types, dialogs;

type

  ESimpleLexerFinished = class(Exception) end;

  TProcTableProc = procedure of object;

  // A very simple lexer that can handle numbers, words, symbols - no comment handling  
  TSimpleLexer = class(TObject)
  private
    FLineNo: Integer;
    Run: Integer;
    fOffset: Integer;
    fRunOffset: Integer; // helper for fOffset
    fTokenPos: Integer;
    pSource: PChar;
    fProcTable: array[#0..#255] of TProcTableProc;
    fUseSimpleStrings: Boolean;
    fIgnoreSpaces: Boolean;
    procedure MakeMethodTables;
    procedure IdentProc;
    procedure NewLineProc;
    procedure NullProc;
    procedure NumberProc;
    procedure SpaceProc;
    procedure SymbolProc;
    procedure UnknownProc;
  public
    constructor Create;
    destructor Destroy; override;
    procedure Feed(const S: string);
    procedure Next;
    function GetToken: string;
    function GetLineNo: Integer;
    function GetOffset: Integer;

    property IgnoreSpaces: boolean read fIgnoreSpaces write fIgnoreSpaces;
    property UseSimpleStrings: boolean read fUseSimpleStrings write fUseSimpleStrings;
  end;

implementation

{ TSimpleLexer }

constructor TSimpleLexer.Create;
begin
  makeMethodTables;
  fUseSimpleStrings := false;
  fIgnoreSpaces := false;
end;

destructor TSimpleLexer.Destroy;
begin
  inherited;
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.Feed(const S: string);
begin
  Run := 0;
  FLineNo := 1;
  FOffset := 1;
  pSource := PChar(S);
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.Next;
begin
  fTokenPos := Run;
  foffset := Run - frunOffset + 1;
  fProcTable[pSource[Run]];
end;

function TSimpleLexer.GetToken: string;
begin
  SetString(Result, (pSource + fTokenPos), Run - fTokenPos);
end;

function TSimpleLexer.GetLineNo: Integer;
begin
  Result := FLineNo;
end;

function TSimpleLexer.GetOffset: Integer;
begin
  Result := foffset;
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.MakeMethodTables;
var
  I: Char;
begin
  for I := #0 to #255 do
    case I of
      '@', '&', '}', '{', ':', ',', ']', '[', '*',
        '^', ')', '(', ';', '/', '=', '-', '+', '#', '>', '<', '$',
        '.', '"', #39:
        fProcTable[I] := SymbolProc;
      #13, #10: fProcTable[I] := NewLineProc;
      'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z', '_': fProcTable[I] := IdentProc;
      #0: fProcTable[I] := NullProc;
      '0'..'9': fProcTable[I] := NumberProc;
      #1..#9, #11, #12, #14..#32: fProcTable[I] := SpaceProc;
    else
      fProcTable[I] := UnknownProc;
    end;
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.UnknownProc;
begin
  inc(run);
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.SymbolProc;
begin
  if fUseSimpleStrings then
  begin
    if pSource[run] = '"' then
    begin
      Inc(run);
      while pSource[run] <> '"' do
      begin
        Inc(run);
        if pSource[run] = #0 then
        begin
          NullProc;
        end;
      end;
    end;
    Inc(run);
  end
  else
    inc(run);
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.IdentProc;
begin
  while pSource[Run] in ['_', 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z', '0'..'9'] do
    Inc(run);
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.NumberProc;
begin
  while pSource[run] in ['0'..'9'] do
    inc(run);
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.SpaceProc;
begin
  while pSource[run] in [#1..#9, #11, #12, #14..#32] do
    inc(run);
  if fIgnoreSpaces then Next;
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.NewLineProc;
begin
  inc(FLineNo);
  inc(run);
  case pSource[run - 1] of
    #13:
      if pSource[run] = #10 then inc(run);
  end;
  foffset := 1;
  fRunOffset := run;
end;

procedure TSimpleLexer.NullProc;
begin
  raise ESimpleLexerFinished.Create('');
end;

end.

Answer 3

I think the biggest bottleneck is always going to be getting the file into memory. Once you have it in memory (obviously not all of it at once, but I would work with buffers if I were you), the actual parsing should be insignificant.

Answer 4

Speed will always be relative to what you are doing once it is parsed. A lexical parser by far is the fastest method of converting to tokens from a text stream regardless of size. TParser in the classes unit is a great place to start.

Personally its been a while since I needed to write a parser, but another more dated yet tried and true method would be to use LEX/YACC to build a grammar then have it convert the grammar into code you can use to perform your processing. DYacc is a Delphi version...not sure if it still compiles or not, but worth a look if you want to do things old school. The dragon book here would be of big help, if you can find a copy.

Answer 5

I made a lexical analyser based on a state engine (DFA). It works with a table and is pretty fast. But there are possible faster options.

It also depends on the language. A simple language can possibly have a smart algorithm.

The table is an array of records each containing 2 chars and 1 integer. For each token the lexer walks through the table, startting at position 0:

state := 0;
result := tkNoToken;
while (result = tkNoToken) do begin
  if table[state].c1 > table[state].c2 then
    result := table[state].value
  else if (table[state].c1 <= c) and (c <= table[state].c2) then begin
    c := GetNextChar();
    state := table[state].value;
  end else
    Inc(state);
end;

It is simple and works like a charm.

Answer 6

• Use PChar incrementing for speed of processing
• If some tokens are not needed, only copy token data on demand
• Copy PChar to local variable when actually scanning through characters
• Keep source data in a single buffer unless you must handle line by line, and even then, consider handling line processing as a separate token in the lexer recognizer
• Consider processing a byte array buffer that has come straight from the file, if you definitely know the encoding; if using Delphi 2009, use PAnsiChar instead of PChar, unless of course you know the encoding is UTF16-LE.
• If you know that the only whitespace is going to be #32 (ASCII space), or a similarly limited set of characters, there may be some clever bit manipulation hacks that can let you process 4 bytes at a time using Integer scanning. I wouldn't expect big wins here though, and the code will be as clear as mud.

Here's a sample lexer that should be pretty efficient, but it assumes that all source data is in a single string. Reworking it to handle buffers is moderately tricky due to very long tokens.

type
  TLexer = class
  private
    FData: string;
    FTokenStart: PChar;
    FCurrPos: PChar;
    function GetCurrentToken: string;
  public
    constructor Create(const AData: string);
    function GetNextToken: Boolean;
    property CurrentToken: string read GetCurrentToken;
  end;

{ TLexer }

constructor TLexer.Create(const AData: string);
begin
  FData := AData;
  FCurrPos := PChar(FData);
end;

function TLexer.GetCurrentToken: string;
begin
  SetString(Result, FTokenStart, FCurrPos - FTokenStart);
end;

function TLexer.GetNextToken: Boolean;
var
  cp: PChar;
begin
  cp := FCurrPos; // copy to local to permit register allocation

  // skip whitespace; this test could be converted to an unsigned int
  // subtraction and compare for only a single branch
  while (cp^ > #0) and (cp^ <= #32) do
    Inc(cp);

  // using null terminater for end of file
  Result := cp^ <> #0;

  if Result then
  begin
    FTokenStart := cp;
    Inc(cp);
    while cp^ > #32 do
      Inc(cp);
  end;

  FCurrPos := cp;
end;