Bracket finding algorithm lua? - algorithm

Question

I'm making a JSON parser and I am looking for an algorithm that can find all of the matching brackets ([]) and braces ({}) and put them into a table with the positions of the pair.
Examples of returned values:
table[x][firstPos][secondPos] = type
table[x] = {firstPos, secondPos, bracketType}
EDIT: Let parse() be the function that returns the bracket pairs. Let table be the value returned by the parse() function. Let codeString be the string containing the brackets that I want to detect. Let firstPos be the position of the first bracket in the Nth pair of brackets. Let secondPos be the position of the second bracket in the Nth pair of brackets. Let bracketType be the type of the bracket pair ("bracket" or "brace").
Example:
If you called:
table = parse(codeString)
table[N][firstPos][secondPos] would be equal to type.

Answer 1

Well, In plain Lua, you could do something like this, also taking into account nested brackets:
function bm(s)
local res ={}
if not s:match('%[') then
return s
end
for k in s:gmatch('%b[]') do
res[#res+1] = bm(k:sub(2,-2))
end
return res
end
Of course you can generalize this easy enough to braces, parentheses, whatever (do keep in mind the necessary escaping of [] in patterns , except behind the %b pattern).
If you're not restricted to plain Lua, you could use LPeg for more flexibility
If you are not looking for the contents of the brackets, but the locations, the recursive approach is harder to implement, since you should keep track of where you are. Easier is just walking through the string and match them while going:
function bm(s,i)
local res={}
res.par=res -- Root
local lev = 0
for loc=1,#s do
if s:sub(loc,loc) == '[' then
lev = lev+1
local t={par=res,start=loc,lev=lev} -- keep track of the parent
res[#res+1] = t -- Add to the parent
res = t -- make this the current working table
print('[',lev,loc)
elseif s:sub(loc,loc) == ']' then
lev = lev-1
if lev<0 then error('too many ]') end -- more closing than opening.
print(']',lev,loc)
res.stop=loc -- save bracket closing position
res = res.par -- revert to the parent.
end
end
return res
end
Now that you have all matched brackets, you can loop through the table, extracting all locations.

Answer 2

I figured out my own algorithm.
function string:findAll(query)
local firstSub = 1
local lastSub = #query
local result = {}
while lastSub <= #self do
if self:sub(firstSub, lastSub) == query then
result[#result + 1] = firstSub
end
firstSub = firstSub + 1
lastSub = lastSub + 1
end
return result
end
function string:findPair(openPos, openChar, closeChar)
local counter = 1
local closePos = openPos
while closePos <= #self do
closePos = closePos + 1
if self:sub(closePos, closePos) == openChar then
counter = counter + 1
elseif self:sub(closePos, closePos) == closeChar then
counter = counter - 1
end
if counter == 0 then
return closePos
end
end
return -1
end
function string:findBrackets(bracketType)
local openBracket = ""
local closeBracket = ""
local openBrackets = {}
local result = {}
if bracketType == "[]" then
openBracket = "["
closeBracket = "]"
elseif bracketType == "{}" then
openBracket = "{"
closeBracket = "}"
elseif bracketType == "()" then
openBracket = "("
closeBracket = ")"
elseif bracketType == "<>" then
openBracket = "<"
closeBracket = ">"
else
error("IllegalArgumentException: Invalid or unrecognized bracket type "..bracketType.."\nFunction: findBrackets()")
end
local openBrackets = self:findAll(openBracket)
if not openBrackets[1] then
return {}
end
for i, j in pairs(openBrackets) do
result[#result + 1] = {j, self:findPair(j, openBracket, closeBracket)}
end
return result
end
Will output:
5 14
6 13
7 12
8 11
9 10