# nom_locate
[](https://travis-ci.org/fflorent/nom_locate)
[](https://coveralls.io/github/fflorent/nom_locate?branch=master)
[](https://crates.io/crates/nom_locate)
A special input type for [nom](https://github.com/geal/nom) to locate tokens
## Documentation
The documentation of the crate is available [here](https://docs.rs/nom_locate/).
## How to use it
The crate provide the [`LocatedSpan` struct](https://docs.rs/nom_locate/struct.LocatedSpan.html) that encapsulates the data. Look at the below example and the explanations:
````rust
#[macro_use]
extern crate nom;
#[macro_use]
extern crate nom_locate;
use nom_locate::LocatedSpan;
type Span<'a> = LocatedSpan<&'a str>;
struct Token<'a> {
pub position: Span<'a>,
pub foo: String,
pub bar: String,
}
named!(parse_foobar( Span ) -> Token, do_parse!(
take_until!("foo") >>
position: position!() >>
foo: tag!("foo") >>
bar: tag!("bar") >>
(Token {
position: position,
foo: foo.to_string(),
bar: bar.to_string()
})
));
fn main () {
let input = Span::new("Lorem ipsum \n foobar");
let output = parse_foobar(input);
let position = output.unwrap().1.position;
assert_eq!(position.location_offset(), 14);
assert_eq!(position.location_line(), 2);
assert_eq!(position.fragment(), &"");
assert_eq!(position.get_column(), 2);
}
````
### Import
Import [nom](https://github.com/geal/nom) and nom_locate.
````rust
extern crate nom;
extern crate nom_locate;
use nom::bytes::complete::{tag, take_until};
use nom::IResult;
use nom_locate::{position, LocatedSpan};
````
Also you'd probably create [type alias](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/type-aliases.html) for convenience so you don't have to specify the `fragment` type every time:
````rust
type Span<'a> = LocatedSpan<&'a str>;
````
### Define the output structure
The output structure of your parser may contain the position as a `Span` (which provides the `index`, `line` and `column` information to locate your token).
````rust
struct Token<'a> {
pub position: Span<'a>,
pub foo: &'a str,
pub bar: &'a str,
}
````
### Create the parser
The parser has to accept a `Span` as an input. You may use `position()` in your nom parser, in order to capture the location of your token:
````rust
fn parse_foobar(s: Span) -> IResult<Span, Token> {
let (s, _) = take_until("foo")(s)?;
let (s, pos) = position(s)?;
let (s, foo) = tag("foo")(s)?;
let (s, bar) = tag("bar")(s)?;
Ok((
s,
Token {
position: pos,
foo: foo.fragment,
bar: bar.fragment,
},
))
}
````
### Call the parser
The parser returns a `nom::IResult<Token, _>` (hence the `unwrap().1`). The `position` property contains the `offset`, `line` and `column`.
````rust
fn main () {
let input = Span::new("Lorem ipsum \n foobar");
let output = parse_foobar(input);
let position = output.unwrap().1.position;
assert_eq!(position, Span {
offset: 14,
line: 2,
fragment: ""
});
assert_eq!(position.get_column(), 2);
}
````