The Topes Format Editor and Parser
It is currently difficult and time-consuming to validate and manipulate data in web applications, so we have developed an editor and a parser to simplify these tasks. Our editor enables end-user programmers to create and debug reusable, flexible data formats without learning a complex new language. Our parser uses these formats to turn strings into structured objects and to report its level of confidence that each string is a valid instance of the format. End-user programmers can use our system to create validation code that takes a graduated response to slightly invalid data. We evaluate our system’s expressiveness by defining formats for commonly-occurring web data. This work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation under ITR grant CCF-0325273 (via the EUSES Consortium) and by the National Science Foundation under ITR grants CCF-0438929 and CCF-0324861.