How do I write a parser? Follow

Hello wallaby.pouch,

Hi,
I decided to learn plugin development by writing a bash language
plugin.
So far I have the highlighting done, basic folding and a start of a
parser.
IMHO it's not that easy to write a parser for IntelliJ. I have basic
parsing working - but:

- I don't know how to test the parser in unit tests. Any possibility
for that? Starting the second instance is not that productive

Yes, of course. Here's one example from our own plugins:
http://svn.jetbrains.org/idea/Trunk/bundled/groovy/test/org/jetbrains/plugins/groovy/lang/parser/ParserTest.java

- What is the recommended way to write a parser which fits to a
certain grammar? I'm not very experienced writing parsers and still
make many mistakes doing that, I think.Anything like a parser
generator available (antlr...)?

No, IDEA currently does not have a ready solution for using generated parsers.
The typical approach when writing parsers in IDEA is to create a method parseSmth()
for each rule in the grammar, and implement the rule in terms of PsiBuilder
markers.

- Is there some language plugin source code which is not that
difficult to read, small and well structured to be an example?

The Clojure parser is probably the simplest and smallest of all the custom
language plugins that are maintained by us:
http://svn.jetbrains.org/idea/Trunk/clojure-plugin/src/org/jetbrains/plugins/clojure/parser/ClojureParser.java

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Development Lead
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"