Grammar ambiguity

Hi all,


I need a tool that checks context-free grammars for ambiguity. I
already know that this is not decidable in general, so I'll have to be
content with heuristics. For example, I could use an LALR parser
generator; if it reports no conflicts, I know that the grammar is
unambiguous (besides being LALR).


Unfortunately, trying to rewrite a grammar for LALR is error-prone (at
least for me) and time-consuming; we're currently talking about
extending an existing language which is sort-of unambiguous (with a
rule that states "a semicolon between statements is optional unless it
is needed to disambiguate the program"). The language is easy to parse
with an Earley algorithm but a nightmare with yacc; unfortunately,
Accent or other Earley-based parsers will not tell me whether a CFG is
ambiguous or not.


In summary: Are there parser generators available that cover more than
just LALR, and where the effort to tweak language syntax to a form
that the generator will accept is so straightforward that I can easily
infer whether the rewritten and the original syntax are still the same
language?


I don't have my hopes too far up, but I wanted to ask before giving
up...


Regards,
Joachim

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