A tiny, fast JavaScript parser written in JavaScript.
Acorn is open source software released under an MIT license.
You are welcome to report bugs or create pull requests on github. For questions and discussion, please use the Tern discussion forum.
The easiest way to install acorn is from npm
:
npm install acorn
Alternately, you can download the source and build acorn yourself:
git clone https://github.com/acornjs/acorn.git cd acorn npm install
parse(input, options)
is the main interface to the library. The input
parameter is a string, options
can be undefined or an object setting some of the options listed below. The return value will be an abstract syntax tree object as specified by the ESTree spec.
let acorn = require("acorn"); console.log(acorn.parse("1 + 1"));
When encountering a syntax error, the parser will raise a SyntaxError
object with a meaningful message. The error object will have a pos
property that indicates the string offset at which the error occurred, and a loc
object that contains a {line, column}
object referring to that same position.
Options can be provided by passing a second argument, which should be an object containing any of these fields:
ecmaVersion: Indicates the ECMAScript version to parse. Must be either 3, 5, 6 (2015), 7 (2016), 8 (2017), 9 (2018) or 10 (2019, partial support). This influences support for strict mode, the set of reserved words, and support for new syntax features. Default is 9.
NOTE: Only 'stage 4' (finalized) ECMAScript features are being implemented by Acorn. Other proposed new features can be implemented through plugins.
sourceType: Indicate the mode the code should be parsed in. Can be either "script"
or "module"
. This influences global strict mode and parsing of import
and export
declarations.
NOTE: If set to "module"
, then static import
/ export
syntax will be valid, even if ecmaVersion
is less than 6.
onInsertedSemicolon: If given a callback, that callback will be called whenever a missing semicolon is inserted by the parser. The callback will be given the character offset of the point where the semicolon is inserted as argument, and if locations
is on, also a {line, column}
object representing this position.
onTrailingComma: Like onInsertedSemicolon
, but for trailing commas.
allowReserved: If false
, using a reserved word will generate an error. Defaults to true
for ecmaVersion
3, false
for higher versions. When given the value "never"
, reserved words and keywords can also not be used as property names (as in Internet Explorer's old parser).
allowReturnOutsideFunction: By default, a return statement at the top level raises an error. Set this to true
to accept such code.
allowImportExportEverywhere: By default, import
and export
declarations can only appear at a program's top level. Setting this option to true
allows them anywhere where a statement is allowed.
allowAwaitOutsideFunction: By default, await
expressions can only appear inside async
functions. Setting this option to true
allows to have top-level await
expressions. They are still not allowed in non-async
functions, though.
allowHashBang: When this is enabled (off by default), if the code starts with the characters #!
(as in a shellscript), the first line will be treated as a comment.
locations: When true
, each node has a loc
object attached with start
and end
subobjects, each of which contains the one-based line and zero-based column numbers in {line, column}
form. Default is false
.
onToken: If a function is passed for this option, each found token will be passed in same format as tokens returned from tokenizer().getToken()
.
If array is passed, each found token is pushed to it.
Note that you are not allowed to call the parser from the callback—that will corrupt its internal state.
onComment: If a function is passed for this option, whenever a comment is encountered the function will be called with the following parameters:
block
: true
if the comment is a block comment, false if it is a line comment.text
: The content of the comment.start
: Character offset of the start of the comment.end
: Character offset of the end of the comment.When the locations
options is on, the {line, column}
locations of the comment’s start and end are passed as two additional parameters.
If array is passed for this option, each found comment is pushed to it as object in Esprima format:
{ "type": "Line" | "Block", "value": "comment text", "start": Number, "end": Number, // If `locations` option is on: "loc": { "start": {line: Number, column: Number} "end": {line: Number, column: Number} }, // If `ranges` option is on: "range": [Number, Number] }
Note that you are not allowed to call the parser from the callback—that will corrupt its internal state.
ranges: Nodes have their start and end characters offsets recorded in start
and end
properties (directly on the node, rather than the loc
object, which holds line/column data. To also add a semi-standardized range
property holding a [start, end]
array with the same numbers, set the ranges
option to true
.
program: It is possible to parse multiple files into a single AST by passing the tree produced by parsing the first file as the program
option in subsequent parses. This will add the toplevel forms of the parsed file to the "Program" (top) node of an existing parse tree.
sourceFile: When the locations
option is true
, you can pass this option to add a source
attribute in every node’s loc
object. Note that the contents of this option are not examined or processed in any way; you are free to use whatever format you choose.
directSourceFile: Like sourceFile
, but a sourceFile
property will be added (regardless of the location
option) directly to the nodes, rather than the loc
object.
preserveParens: If this option is true
, parenthesized expressions are represented by (non-standard) ParenthesizedExpression
nodes that have a single expression
property containing the expression inside parentheses.
parseExpressionAt(input, offset, options)
will parse a single expression in a string, and return its AST. It will not complain if there is more of the string left after the expression.
tokenizer(input, options)
returns an object with a getToken
method that can be called repeatedly to get the next token, a {start, end, type, value}
object (with added loc
property when the locations
option is enabled and range
property when the ranges
option is enabled). When the token's type is tokTypes.eof
, you should stop calling the method, since it will keep returning that same token forever.
In ES6 environment, returned result can be used as any other protocol-compliant iterable:
for (let token of acorn.tokenizer(str)) { // iterate over the tokens } // transform code to array of tokens: var tokens = [...acorn.tokenizer(str)];
tokTypes holds an object mapping names to the token type objects that end up in the type
properties of tokens.
getLineInfo(input, offset)
can be used to get a {line, column}
object for a given program string and offset.
Parser
classInstances of the Parser
class contain all the state and logic that drives a parse. It has static methods parse
, parseExpressionAt
, and tokenizer
that match the top-level functions by the same name.
When extending the parser with plugins, you need to call these methods on the extended version of the class. To extend a parser with plugins, you can use its static extend
method.
var acorn = require("acorn"); var jsx = require("acorn-jsx"); var JSXParser = acorn.Parser.extend(jsx()); JSXParser.parse("foo(<bar/>)");
The extend
method takes any number of plugin values, and returns a new Parser
class that includes the extra parser logic provided by the plugins.
The bin/acorn
utility can be used to parse a file from the command line. It accepts as arguments its input file and the following options:
--ecma3|--ecma5|--ecma6|--ecma7|--ecma8|--ecma9|--ecma10
: Sets the ECMAScript version to parse. Default is version 9.
--module
: Sets the parsing mode to "module"
. Is set to "script"
otherwise.
--locations
: Attaches a "loc" object to each node with "start" and "end" subobjects, each of which contains the one-based line and zero-based column numbers in {line, column}
form.
--allow-hash-bang
: If the code starts with the characters #! (as in a shellscript), the first line will be treated as a comment.
--compact
: No whitespace is used in the AST output.
--silent
: Do not output the AST, just return the exit status.
--help
: Print the usage information and quit.
The utility spits out the syntax tree as JSON data.
acorn-jsx
: Parse Facebook JSX syntax extensions
Plugins for ECMAScript proposals:
acorn-stage3
: Parse most stage 3 proposals, bundling: