Optimizing StringScanner-based Lexers in Ruby

2023/09/05

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The article discusses the process of optimizing StringScanner-based lexers in Ruby. The author begins by introducing the concept of lexing, which involves breaking down an input string into a series of tokens. They then present a basic lexer for a subset of GraphQL, excluding string literals. The author shares benchmark results for the lexer and highlights the need for optimization. They explain that StringScanner is a useful utility in Ruby for tokenizing strings and provide an example of its usage. The article then delves into optimizing the lexer by utilizing StringScanner's skip method to skip patterns and improve performance. The author concludes by emphasizing the benefits of combining StringScanner with Ruby's case/when construct for writing efficient tokenizers. This article is relevant for developers interested in optimizing lexers using StringScanner in Ruby.