starting to parse
Documentation Overview
VB6Parse is designed as a foundational library for tools that analyze, convert, or process Visual Basic 6 code. While capable of supporting real-time syntax highlighting and language servers, its primary focus is on offline analysis, legacy code utilities, and migration tools.
Key Features
🚀 High Performance
Fast, efficient parsing with minimal allocations and zero-copy tokenization
📦 Full VB6 Support
Supports projects (.vbp), modules (.bas), classes (.cls), forms (.frm), and resources (.frx)
🌲 Concrete Syntax Tree
Complete source fidelity with CST preserving all whitespace and comments
🛡️ Error Handling
Comprehensive error handling with detailed failure information and recovery
✅ Well Tested
5,500+ tests including unit tests, integration tests, doc tests, and fuzz testing
Architecture
VB6Parse uses a seven-layer parsing pipeline that transforms raw bytes into structured VB6 objects. Each layer builds on the previous one, providing clean separation of concerns and allowing you to hook into the parsing process at any level.
(Windows-1252)
(Characters)
(Tokens)
(Syntax Tree)
(ProjectFile, ClassFile, ModuleFile, FormFile, etc.)
(50+ control types)
(24 predefined)
Layer Details
I/O Layer
Input: Raw bytes, strings, or files
Output: Character streams
Purpose: Handles Windows-1252 encoding and provides character-level access to source code.
Key Types: SourceFile, SourceStream
Lexer Layer
Input: Character stream
Output: Token stream
Purpose: Converts characters into tokens (keywords, identifiers, operators, literals).
Key Types: TokenStream, Token
Parser Layer
Input: Token stream
Output: Concrete Syntax Tree (CST)
Purpose: Builds a complete tree structure preserving all source information.
Key Types: ConcreteSyntaxTree, CstNode
VB6 Language Layer
Input: Source files
Output: Structured file objects
Purpose: High-level parsers for each VB6 file type.
Key Types: ProjectFile, ClassFile, ModuleFile, FormFile
Testing & Quality
Test statistics being generated...
VB6Parse uses comprehensive testing including unit tests, snapshot testing with insta, benchmarking with criterion, and fuzz testing with cargo-fuzz.
Community & Contributing
VB6Parse is open source and welcomes contributions! Whether you're reporting bugs, suggesting features, or submitting pull requests, your help is appreciated.