What does "fragment" mean in ANTLR?

Question

What does fragment mean in ANTLR?

I've seen both rules:

fragment DIGIT : '0'..'9';

and

DIGIT : '0'..'9';

What is the difference?

Answer 1

A fragment is somewhat akin to an inline function: It makes the grammar more readable and easier to maintain.

A fragment will never be counted as a token, it only serves to simplify a grammar.

Consider:

NUMBER: DIGITS | OCTAL_DIGITS | HEX_DIGITS;
fragment DIGITS: '1'..'9' '0'..'9'*;
fragment OCTAL_DIGITS: '0' '0'..'7'+;
fragment HEX_DIGITS: '0x' ('0'..'9' | 'a'..'f' | 'A'..'F')+;

In this example, matching a NUMBER will always return a NUMBER to the lexer, regardless of if it matched "1234", "0xab12", or "0777".

See item 3

Answer 2

According to the Definitive Antlr4 references book :

Rules prefixed with fragment can be called only from other lexer rules; they are not tokens in their own right.

actually they'll improve readability of your grammars.

look at this example :

STRING : '"' (ESC | ~["\\])* '"' ;
fragment ESC : '\\' (["\\/bfnrt] | UNICODE) ;
fragment UNICODE : 'u' HEX HEX HEX HEX ;
fragment HEX : [0-9a-fA-F] ;

STRING is a lexer using fragment rule like ESC .Unicode is used in Esc rule and Hex is used in Unicode fragment rule. ESC and UNICODE and HEX rules can't be used explicitly.

Answer 3

The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference (Page 106)：

Rules prefixed with fragment can be called only from other lexer rules; they are not tokens in their own right.

Abstract Concepts:

Case1: ( if I need the RULE1, RULE2, RULE3 entities or group info )

rule0 : RULE1 | RULE2 | RULE3 ;
RULE1 : [A-C]+ ;
RULE2 : [DEF]+ ;
RULE3 : ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;

Case2: ( if I don't care RULE1, RULE2, RULE3, I just focus on RULE0 )

RULE0 : [A-C]+ | [DEF]+ | ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;
// RULE0 is a terminal node. 
// You can't name it 'rule0', or you will get syntax errors:
// 'A-C' came as a complete surprise to me while matching alternative
// 'DEF' came as a complete surprise to me while matching alternative

Case3: ( is equivalent to Case2, making it more readable than Case2)

RULE0 : RULE1 | RULE2 | RULE3 ;
fragment RULE1 : [A-C]+ ;
fragment RULE2 : [DEF]+ ;
fragment RULE3 : ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;
// You can't name it 'rule0', or you will get warnings:
// warning(125): implicit definition of token RULE1 in parser
// warning(125): implicit definition of token RULE2 in parser
// warning(125): implicit definition of token RULE3 in parser
// and failed to capture rule0 content (?)

Differences between Case1 and Case2/3 ?

1. The lexer rules are equivalent
2. Each of RULE1/2/3 in Case1 is a capturing group, similar to Regex:(X)
3. Each of RULE1/2/3 in Case3 is a non-capturing group, similar to Regex:(?:X)

---

Let's see a concrete example.

Goal: identify [ABC]+, [DEF]+, [GHI]+ tokens

input.txt

ABBCCCDDDDEEEEE ABCDE
FFGGHHIIJJKK FGHIJK
ABCDEFGHIJKL

Main.py

import sys
from antlr4 import *
from AlphabetLexer import AlphabetLexer
from AlphabetParser import AlphabetParser
from AlphabetListener import AlphabetListener

class MyListener(AlphabetListener):
    # Exit a parse tree produced by AlphabetParser#content.
    def exitContent(self, ctx:AlphabetParser.ContentContext):
        pass

    # (For Case1 Only) enable it when testing Case1
    # Exit a parse tree produced by AlphabetParser#rule0.
    def exitRule0(self, ctx:AlphabetParser.Rule0Context):
        print(ctx.getText())
# end-of-class

def main():
    file_name = sys.argv[1]
    input = FileStream(file_name)
    lexer = AlphabetLexer(input)
    stream = CommonTokenStream(lexer)
    parser = AlphabetParser(stream)
    tree = parser.content()
    print(tree.toStringTree(recog=parser))

    listener = MyListener()
    walker = ParseTreeWalker()
    walker.walk(listener, tree)
# end-of-def

main()

Case1 and results:

Alphabet.g4 (Case1)

grammar Alphabet;

content : (rule0|ANYCHAR)* EOF;

rule0 : RULE1 | RULE2 | RULE3 ;
RULE1 : [A-C]+ ;
RULE2 : [DEF]+ ;
RULE3 : ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;

ANYCHAR : . -> skip;

Result:

# Input data (for reference)
# ABBCCCDDDDEEEEE ABCDE
# FFGGHHIIJJKK FGHIJK
# ABCDEFGHIJKL

$ python3 Main.py input.txt 
(content (rule0 ABBCCC) (rule0 DDDDEEEEE) (rule0 ABC) (rule0 DE) (rule0 FF) (rule0 GGHHII) (rule0 F) (rule0 GHI) (rule0 ABC) (rule0 DEF) (rule0 GHI) <EOF>)
ABBCCC
DDDDEEEEE
ABC
DE
FF
GGHHII
F
GHI
ABC
DEF
GHI

Case2/3 and results:

Alphabet.g4 (Case2)

grammar Alphabet;

content : (RULE0|ANYCHAR)* EOF;

RULE0 : [A-C]+ | [DEF]+ | ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;

ANYCHAR : . -> skip;

Alphabet.g4 (Case3)

grammar Alphabet;

content : (RULE0|ANYCHAR)* EOF;

RULE0 : RULE1 | RULE2 | RULE3 ;
fragment RULE1 : [A-C]+ ;
fragment RULE2 : [DEF]+ ;
fragment RULE3 : ('G'|'H'|'I')+ ;

ANYCHAR : . -> skip;

Result:

# Input data (for reference)
# ABBCCCDDDDEEEEE ABCDE
# FFGGHHIIJJKK FGHIJK
# ABCDEFGHIJKL

$ python3 Main.py input.txt 
(content ABBCCC DDDDEEEEE ABC DE FF GGHHII F GHI ABC DEF GHI <EOF>)

Did you see "capturing groups" and "non-capturing groups" parts?

---

---

Let's see the concrete example2.

Goal: identify octal / decimal / hexadecimal numbers

input.txt

0
123
 1~9999
 001~077
0xFF, 0x01, 0xabc123

Number.g4

grammar Number;

content
    : (number|ANY_CHAR)* EOF
    ;

number
    : DECIMAL_NUMBER
    | OCTAL_NUMBER
    | HEXADECIMAL_NUMBER
    ;

DECIMAL_NUMBER
    : [1-9][0-9]*
    | '0'
    ;

OCTAL_NUMBER
    : '0' '0'..'9'+
    ;

HEXADECIMAL_NUMBER
    : '0x'[0-9A-Fa-f]+
    ;

ANY_CHAR
    : .
    ;

Main.py

import sys
from antlr4 import *
from NumberLexer import NumberLexer
from NumberParser import NumberParser
from NumberListener import NumberListener

class Listener(NumberListener):
    # Exit a parse tree produced by NumberParser#Number.
    def exitNumber(self, ctx:NumberParser.NumberContext):
        print('%8s, dec: %-8s, oct: %-8s, hex: %-8s' % (ctx.getText(),
            ctx.DECIMAL_NUMBER(), ctx.OCTAL_NUMBER(), ctx.HEXADECIMAL_NUMBER()))
    # end-of-def
# end-of-class

def main():
    input = FileStream(sys.argv[1])
    lexer = NumberLexer(input)
    stream = CommonTokenStream(lexer)
    parser = NumberParser(stream)
    tree = parser.content()
    print(tree.toStringTree(recog=parser))

    listener = Listener()
    walker = ParseTreeWalker()
    walker.walk(listener, tree)
# end-of-def

main()

Result:

# Input data (for reference)
# 0
# 123
#  1~9999
#  001~077
# 0xFF, 0x01, 0xabc123

$ python3 Main.py input.txt 
(content (number 0) \n (number 123) \n   (number 1) ~ (number 9999) \n   (number 001) ~ (number 077) \n (number 0xFF) ,   (number 0x01) ,   (number 0xabc123) \n <EOF>)
       0, dec: 0       , oct: None    , hex: None    
     123, dec: 123     , oct: None    , hex: None    
       1, dec: 1       , oct: None    , hex: None    
    9999, dec: 9999    , oct: None    , hex: None    
     001, dec: None    , oct: 001     , hex: None    
     077, dec: None    , oct: 077     , hex: None    
    0xFF, dec: None    , oct: None    , hex: 0xFF    
    0x01, dec: None    , oct: None    , hex: 0x01    
0xabc123, dec: None    , oct: None    , hex: 0xabc123

If you add the modifier 'fragment' to DECIMAL_NUMBER, OCTAL_NUMBER, HEXADECIMAL_NUMBER, you won't be able to capture the number entities (since they are not tokens anymore). And the result will be:

$ python3 Main.py input.txt 
(content 0 \n 1 2 3 \n   1 ~ 9 9 9 9 \n   0 0 1 ~ 0 7 7 \n 0 x F F ,   0 x 0 1 ,   0 x a b c 1 2 3 \n <EOF>)

Answer 4

This blog post has a very clear example where fragment makes a significant difference:

grammar number;  

number: INT;  
DIGIT : '0'..'9';  
INT   :  DIGIT+;

The grammar will recognize '42' but not '7'. You can fix it by making digit a fragment (or moving DIGIT after INT).