LALR parser

An LALR parser is a term from computer science; it is a particular parser? generated by the [Lookahead LR parser generator]? algorithm (Lookahead LR is abbreviated LALR). The LALR algorithm produces LR parsers; they are used for recognizing strings from the language of a context-free grammar.

An LR parser usually consists of a driver program and a table; the LALR algorithm produces the table, so sometimes LALR parser is used to refer to the table. Once the table has been generated it isn't in general possible to tell what algorithm was used to generate it.

The programms yacc and bison use the Lookahead LR parser generator algorithm to produce parsers. They are commonly used in constructing compilers for [programming languages]? and for writing other programs that expect input in a structured format that can be described by a context-free grammar.

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