With FParsec is it possible to manipulate the error position when a parser fails?

Question

As an example, I will take this simple C# parser by Phillip Trelford. In order to parse an identifier he writes this (slightly changed):

let reserved = ["for";"do"; "while";"if";"switch";"case";"default";"break" (*;...*)]
let pidentifierraw =
    let isIdentifierFirstChar c = isLetter c || c = '_'
    let isIdentifierChar c = isLetter c || isDigit c || c = '_'
    many1Satisfy2L isIdentifierFirstChar isIdentifierChar "identifier"
let pidentifier =
    pidentifierraw
    >>= fun s ->
        if reserved |> List.exists ((=) s) then fail "keyword instead of identifier"
        else preturn s

The problem with pidentifier is that when it fails, the position indicator is at the end of the stream. An example of mine:

Error in Ln: 156 Col: 41 (UTF16-Col: 34)
        Block "main" 116x60 font=default fg=textForeground
                                        ^
Note: The column count assumes a tab stop distance of 8 chars.
keyword instead of identifier

Obviously, not a C# snippet, but for the example's sake, I've used the pidentifier to parse the text after font= . Is it possible to tell FParsec to show the error at the beginning of the parsed input? Using >>? , .>>.? or any of the backtracking variants seems to have no effect.

Answer 1

I think what you want is attempt p , which will backtrack to the original parser state if parser p fails. So you could just define pidentifier as:

let pidentifier =
    pidentifierraw
    >>= fun s ->
        if reserved |> List.exists ((=) s) then fail "keyword instead of identifier"
        else preturn s
    |> attempt   // rollback on failure

Output is then something like:

Failure:
Error in Ln: 1 Col: 1
default
^

The parser backtracked after:
  Error in Ln: 1 Col: 8
  default
         ^
  Note: The error occurred at the end of the input stream.
  keyword instead of identifier

---

Update

If you don't want to see the backtracking info in the error message, you can use a simplified version of attempt , like this:

let attempt (parser : Parser<_, _>) : Parser<_, _> =
    fun stream ->
        let mutable state = CharStreamState(stream)
        let reply = parser stream
        if reply.Status <> Ok then
            stream.BacktrackTo(&state)
        reply

Output is now just:

Failure:
Error in Ln: 1 Col: 1
default
^
keyword instead of identifier

Answer 2

Unfortunately I missed the >>=? operator which apparently is (at least semantically) equivalent to attempt that Brian Berns correctly suggested .

The problem with both of these approaches is the subsequent messages The parser backtracked after:[…] that can cascade if the preceding parsers are backtracking as well:

Error in Ln: 156 Col: 29 (UTF16-Col: 22)
        Block "main" 116x60 font=default fg=textForeground
                            ^
Note: The column count assumes a tab stop distance of 8 chars.
Expecting: space/tab

The parser backtracked after:
  Error in Ln: 156 Col: 42 (UTF16-Col: 35)
          Block "main" 116x60 font=default fg=textForeground
                                           ^
  Note: The column count assumes a tab stop distance of 8 chars.
  Expecting: space/tab
  Other error messages:
    keyword instead of identifier