I’m hoping to read some C code (XPM image files) using Common Lisp, and I am thinking that it would help to equip the Lisp parser to skip over C-style comments (primarily /* ... */ comments, maybe also //, not sure if that’s necessary yet).

Can anyone say how to define a readtable which skips over C-style comments? A web search didn’t bring up anything from what I can tell.

I only need to read the C code, so it’s acceptable that skipping C-style comments makes it impossible to read some valid Common Lisp constructs.

  • noogai03@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Wait you’re loading image files directly using the lisp loader? This sounds risky

  • PetriciaKerman@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    You could use the c pre-processor to remove the comments. It might be a good idea to use the cpp anyway as it will also expand macros and what not for you which may be difficult to do otherwise.

    • corvid_booster@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Thanks for your response. One of the constraints is that it needs to be an entirely Common Lisp solution; external tools or C libraries via FFI can’t be part of the solution.

      You’re right that macros or other C constructs can complicate the picture. Whether or not that’s an issue depends on the assumptions that tools writing XPM files make. At this point I’m willing to just get past the comments issue and then see how far that gets me.