Testing lexers and parsers

[Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com>]

Folks,

I'm trying to incrementally develop a translator using a test-driven  
approach. I figure I can write a bunch of tests for small chunks of  
functionality to structurally test expected AST against produced.

Once I get to testing the parsing of whole files I think I can print  
the AST I produce into a file and test this against a target file  
with the correct printed AST. I can probably run 'cmp' to make sure  
my files match. This would not be a structural comparison, though,  
and would be highly dependent on white space which does not strike me  
as ideal.

Is there a better way to accomplish this while still using structural  
comparison of ASTs?

Should I try to read my target AST into OCaml, for example? Should I  
create a bunch of "target AST" modules with functions that return my  
target AST?

How does everyone else approach testing of lexers and parsers?

	Thanks, Joel

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