[Haskell-cafe] Re: [Haskell] Re: ANN: Haddock version 2.1.0

[Simon Marlow]

David Waern wrote:
> 2008/5/8 Simon Marlow <marlowsd at gmail.com>:
>> So basically you want to run a lexer over the source again to collect all
>> the comments?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> You really want to use GHC's lexer, because otherwise you
>> have to write another lexer.
> 
> I don't mind writing a lexer that just collects the comments. It
> should be simpler than a full Haskell lexer, right? It wouldn't need
> to handle layout, for instance. Using GHC is also a good option.

I'm not sure it's that much easier to write a lexer that just collects 
comments.  For example, is there a comment here?

   3#--foo

with -XMagicHash it is (3# followed by a comment), but without -XMagicHash 
it is not (3 followed by the operator #--).  You have to implement a 
significant chunk of the options that GHC supports to get it right.  I'd 
say its probably easier to work with GHC's lexer.

Cheers,
	Simon