taocpp/PEGTL

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

2153 stars · 247 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

PEGTL is a zero-dependency, header-only C++ library for building parsers with Parsing Expression Grammars using parser combinators expressed as nested template instantiations. Grammars are written as ordinary C++ code with a comprehensive, extensible set of parser rules.

Use cases

• parse a custom DSL in C++
• write a parser for a config file format
• build a lexer and parser without external dependencies
• define a grammar as C++ template code
• parse structured text like JSON or INI in C++
• create a compiler frontend parser

When to choose

• you need a header-only, zero-dependency C++ parsing library
• you want grammars expressed directly as C++ code
• your language fits a PEG (no ambiguous grammars needed)
• you need fine-grained control over parsing actions and error reporting

When to avoid

• you need ambiguous or context-sensitive parsing beyond PEG capabilities
• you want parser generators that emit standalone code (e.g. yacc/ANTLR style)
• you are not working in C++11 or newer

Facets

library · maturity stable

parser developer-tools parsers programming-languages developer-tools cpp cross-platform windows header-only parser-combinators parsing-expression-grammar peg zero-dependency template-library linux macos android

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