1<html> 2<head> 3<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> 4<title>Quick Start</title> 5<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../../../../../../doc/src/boostbook.css" type="text/css"> 6<meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1"> 7<link rel="home" href="../../../index.html" title="Spirit 2.5.8"> 8<link rel="up" href="../tutorials.html" title="Tutorials"> 9<link rel="prev" href="../tutorials.html" title="Tutorials"> 10<link rel="next" href="warming_up.html" title="Warming up"> 11</head> 12<body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"> 13<table cellpadding="2" width="100%"><tr> 14<td valign="top"><img alt="Boost C++ Libraries" width="277" height="86" src="../../../../../../../boost.png"></td> 15<td align="center"><a href="../../../../../../../index.html">Home</a></td> 16<td align="center"><a href="../../../../../../../libs/libraries.htm">Libraries</a></td> 17<td align="center"><a href="http://www.boost.org/users/people.html">People</a></td> 18<td align="center"><a href="http://www.boost.org/users/faq.html">FAQ</a></td> 19<td align="center"><a href="../../../../../../../more/index.htm">More</a></td> 20</tr></table> 21<hr> 22<div class="spirit-nav"> 23<a accesskey="p" href="../tutorials.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/prev.png" alt="Prev"></a><a accesskey="u" href="../tutorials.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/up.png" alt="Up"></a><a accesskey="h" href="../../../index.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/home.png" alt="Home"></a><a accesskey="n" href="warming_up.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/next.png" alt="Next"></a> 24</div> 25<div class="section"> 26<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"> 27<a name="spirit.qi.tutorials.quick_start"></a><a class="link" href="quick_start.html" title="Quick Start">Quick Start</a> 28</h4></div></div></div> 29<h6> 30<a name="spirit.qi.tutorials.quick_start.h0"></a> 31 <span class="phrase"><a name="spirit.qi.tutorials.quick_start.why_would_you_want_to_use_spirit_qi_"></a></span><a class="link" href="quick_start.html#spirit.qi.tutorials.quick_start.why_would_you_want_to_use_spirit_qi_">Why 32 would you want to use Spirit.Qi?</a> 33 </h6> 34<p> 35 Spirit.Qi is designed to be a practical parsing tool. The ability to generate 36 a fully-working parser from a formal EBNF specification inlined in C++ 37 significantly reduces development time. Programmers typically approach 38 parsing using ad hoc hacks with primitive tools such as scanf. Even regular-expression 39 libraries (such as boost regex) or scanners (such as Boost tokenizer) do 40 not scale well when we need to write more elaborate parsers. Attempting 41 to write even a moderately-complex parser using these tools leads to code 42 that is hard to understand and maintain. 43 </p> 44<p> 45 One prime objective is to make the tool easy to use. When one thinks of 46 a parser generator, the usual reaction is "it must be big and complex 47 with a steep learning curve." Not so. Spirit is designed to be fully 48 scalable. The library is structured in layers. This permits learning on 49 an as-needed basis, after only learning the minimal core and basic concepts. 50 </p> 51<p> 52 For development simplicity and ease in deployment, the entire library consists 53 of only header files, with no libraries to link against or build. Just 54 put the Spirit distribution in your include path, compile and run. Code 55 size? -very tight -essentially comparable to hand written recursive descent 56 code. 57 </p> 58<p> 59 Our tutorials will walk you through the simplest Spirit examples, incrementally 60 building on top of the earlier examples as we expose more and more features 61 and techniques. We will try to be as gentle as possible with the learning 62 curve. We will present the tutorials in a cookbook style approach. This 63 style of presentation is based on our BoostCon '07 and BoostCon '08 slides. 64 </p> 65<p> 66 Have fun! 67 </p> 68</div> 69<table xmlns:rev="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gregod/boost/tools/doc/revision" width="100%"><tr> 70<td align="left"></td> 71<td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright © 2001-2011 Joel de Guzman, Hartmut Kaiser<p> 72 Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying 73 file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>) 74 </p> 75</div></td> 76</tr></table> 77<hr> 78<div class="spirit-nav"> 79<a accesskey="p" href="../tutorials.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/prev.png" alt="Prev"></a><a accesskey="u" href="../tutorials.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/up.png" alt="Up"></a><a accesskey="h" href="../../../index.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/home.png" alt="Home"></a><a accesskey="n" href="warming_up.html"><img src="../../../../../../../doc/src/images/next.png" alt="Next"></a> 80</div> 81</body> 82</html> 83
