I've learned/used basic TXR some time ago. I had a text parsing problem that needed backtracing, and it seemed simpler to use TXR than to use implement this in python or perl.
Basic TXR matching is really quite simple. Match some patterns, generate a report at the end. The patterns are interleaved with the matching text, so it's more like a more powerful version of regexprs (but far more readable), than a normal programing language.
You can learn it quickly based on the provided examples.
It's just a few straight forward commands, although you have to wrap your mind how the backtracing parser works.
Most of the manual is about the LISP. I never used that part and I don't think it's really needed for 95+% of all text parsing/summarizing.
Basic TXR matching is really quite simple. Match some patterns, generate a report at the end. The patterns are interleaved with the matching text, so it's more like a more powerful version of regexprs (but far more readable), than a normal programing language.
You can learn it quickly based on the provided examples.
It's just a few straight forward commands, although you have to wrap your mind how the backtracing parser works.
Most of the manual is about the LISP. I never used that part and I don't think it's really needed for 95+% of all text parsing/summarizing.