Incremental generation of LR parsers

Implementation of a new compiler usually requires making frequent adjustments to grammar definitions. An incremental technique for updating the parser tables after a monor change to the grammer could potentially save much computational effort. More importantly, debugging a grammar is made easier if the grammar is re-checked for correctness after each small change to the grammar. The basic design philosophy of an incremental parser generator, and incremental algorithms for LR(0), SLR(1) and LALR(1) parser generation are discussed in this paper. Some of these algorithms have been incorporated into an implementation of an incremental LALR(1) parser generator.