Unable to write a grammar in perl6 for parsing lines with special characters

Note that there is a hidden space at the end of the last line in the $t string:

my $t = q :to/EOQ/; 
    Invoice Summary
    asd fasdf
    asdfasdf
    asd 123-fasdf $1234.00
    qwe {rq} [we-r_q] we
    Start Invoice Details␣   <-- Space at the end of the line
    EOQ

This makes the <invoice-prelude-end> token fail since it contains the a lookahead regexp <?before 'Start Invoice Details'\n>. This lookahead does not include a possible space at the end of the line (due to the explicit newline character \n at the end of the lookahead). Hence, the <invoice-prelude> rule cannot match either.

A quick fix is to remove the space at the end of the line Start Invoice Details.

Firstly, the frugal quantifier *? without a backtracking probably every time match the empty string. You can use regex instead of rule.

Secondly, there is a space at the end of the line, which starts with Start Invoice Details.

rule invoice-prelude-end {<line> <?before 'Start Invoice Details' \n>};

regex invoice-prelude {
    <invoice-prelude-start>
    <line>*?
    <invoice-prelude-end>
    <line>
}

If you want to avoid a backtracking, you can use negative lookahead.

token invoice-prelude-end { <line> };

rule invoice-prelude {
    <invoice-prelude-start>
    [<line> <!before 'Start Invoice Details' \n>]*
    <invoice-prelude-end>
    <line>
}

Whole example with some changes as inspiration:

use v6;
#use Grammar::Tracer;


grammar invoice {
    token ws { <!ww>\h* }
    token super-word { \S+ }
    token line { <super-word>* % <.ws> }

    token invoice-prelude-start   { 'Invoice Summary' }
    rule  invoice-prelude-midline { <line> <!before \n <invoice-details-start> \n> }
    token invoice-prelude-end     { <line> }
    token invoice-details-start   { 'Start Invoice Details' }

    rule invoice-prelude {
        <invoice-prelude-start> \n
        <invoice-prelude-midline> * %% \n
        <invoice-prelude-end> \n
        <invoice-details-start> \n
    }
}

multi sub MAIN(){

    my $t = q :to/EOQ/;
    Invoice Summary
    asd fasdf
    asdfasdf
    asd 123-fasdf $1234.00
    qwe {rq} [we-r_q] we
    Start Invoice Details 
    EOQ


    say $t;
    say invoice.parse($t,:rule<invoice-prelude>);
}

TLDR: The issue is that the test input line with Start Invoice Details  ends with horizontal whitespace that you aren't dealing with.

Two ways to deal with it (other than changing the input)

# Explicitly:                                                       vvv
token invoice-prelude-end { <line> <?before 'Start Invoice Details' \h* \n>}

# Implicitly:
rule  invoice-prelude-end { <line><?before 'Start Invoice Details' \n>}
# ^ must be a rule                      and there must be a space ^
# (uses the fact that you wrote your own <ws> token)

---

Following are some more things that I think would be helpful

I would have used the “separated by” feature % in line and super-phrase

token super-phrase { <super-word>+ % \h } # single % doesn't capture trailing separator

token line {
  ^^ \h*
  <super-word>* %% \h+ # double %% can capture optional trailing separator
  \n
}

Those are [almost] exactly equivalent to what you wrote. (What you wrote has to fail to match <super-word> twice in <line>, but this only has to fail once.)

---

I would have used the surround feature ~ in invoice-prelude

token invoice-prelude {
    # zero or more <line>s surrounded by <invoice-prelude-start> and <invoice-prelude-end>
    <invoice-prelude-start> ~ <invoice-prelude-end> <line>*?

    <line> # I assume this is here for debugging
}

Note that it didn't actually gain anything by being a rule because all of the horizontal whitespace is already handled by the rest of the code.

---

I don't think that the last line of the invoice prelude is special, so remove <line> from invoice-prelude-end. (<line>*? in invoice-prelude will capture it instead.)

token invoice-prelude-end {<?before 'Start Invoice Details' \h* \n>}

---

The only regexs that could benefit from being a rule is invoice-prelude-start and invoice-prelude-end.

rule  invoice-prelude-start {^^ Invoice Summary \n}
# `^^` is needed  so the space ^ will match <.ws>

rule  invoice-prelude-end {<?before ^^ Start Invoice Details $$>}

That would only work if you are fine with it matching something like      Invoice    Summary    ␤.

Note that invoice-prelude-start needs to use \n to capture it, but invoice-prelude-end can use $$ instead because it isn't capturing \n anyway.

---

If you change super-word to something other than \S+, then you may also want to change ws to something like \h+ | <.wb>. (word boundary)

---

#! /usr/bin/env perl6
use v6.d;

grammar invoice {
    token TOP { # testing
         <invoice-prelude>
         <line>
    }

    token ws { \h* | <.wb> };
    token super-word { \S+ };
    token super-phrase { <super-word>+ % \h }
    token line {
        ^^ \h*
        <super-word>* %% \h+
        \n
    };

    rule invoice-prelude-start {^^ Invoice Summary \n}
    rule invoice-prelude-end {<?before ^^ Start Invoice Details $$>};

    token invoice-prelude {
        <invoice-prelude-start> ~ <invoice-prelude-end>
            <line>*?
    }
}

multi sub MAIN(){ 
    my $t = q :to/EOQ/; 
    Invoice Summary
    asd fasdf
    asdfasdf
    asd 123-fasdf $1234.00
    qwe {rq} [we-r_q] we
    Start Invoice Details 
    EOQ


    say $t;
    say invoice.parse($t);
}