Jasper <notaround@d...> wrote in
<2p-dnWHym_54YPzaRVnyvAA@p...>:
> I have a structured data file of the general form shown
> below. I dont have any definition of the data. Basically
> it looks like it is hierarchical, token/data pairs defined
> by brackets and square brackets.
> 
> I would like to parse this out into some sort of data
> object(s) in C++  so that I can gain programmatic access
> to the variables.
> 
> My app is C++ so the solution must be the same. Also it
> must be very lightweight and *very* fast as I must decode
> multiple pages in realtime.

Well, representing data like that in XML is not a problem in
itself, even if you cannot define a more strict schema than
just free-form key/value pairs. The problem is that you're
probably not very likely to get the extreme performance you
seem to want with a canned parser. DOM parsers,
specifically, would be way too cumbersome for your needs.
So it's likely to boil down to either writing your own
streaming parser, or using a streaming parser like expat or
any random SAX parser out there for maximum performance,
and even then you might not get what you need.

> Would adapting an XML parser to do this be a possible
> solution?

Not enough data. Try it, profile it, there's no other way to
know.

> Any pointers/ideas/references/code snippets/observations
> appreciated.

You might want to look into S-expressions as well. You'll
save on overhead, and I believe there are some quite fast
S-expression parsers written in C and C++ out there.

-- 
...also, I submit that we all must honourably commit seppuku
right now rather than serve the Dark Side by producing the
HTML 5 spec.