Abstract
This article gives a detailed exposition of the LR parsing method. Like many of great breakthroughs, Knuth's LR parsing method is based on a simple idea: to use a regular expression recognizer iteratively to parse (a certain class of) context-free languages. Based on this idea, Knuth developed a theory and implementation techniques for a practical parsing method that has been widely used in today's compilers. Once one understands the idea and the principles underlying the LR parsing method, one should be able to understand the LR paring algorithm, which has been often perceived elaborate and difficult to comprehend. This article aims at introducing to the general readers with basic computer science background, the idea and the principle underlying the LR parsing method.
