Install antlr with Homebrew, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• antlr
• grun

Project history

The official site describes ANTLR as a parser generator for reading, processing, executing, or translating structured text or binary files, and notes that Parr has worked on language tools since 1989. ANTLR 4 is the modern generation of the project; its repository documentation says major version bumps happen when the tool is rewritten for a new generation, specifically citing the ANTLR 3 to ANTLR 4 move from LL(*) to ALL(*) parsing.

ANTLR 4 consolidated the tool and runtimes in one coordinated release line. The README explains that a release covers the tool plus all supported runtimes at the same version, because cross-target consistency is part of the project contract. That policy makes ANTLR feel unlike many single-language packages: a Homebrew user installing the CLI is also installing into a cross-language ecosystem.

Adoption history

ANTLR became important wherever teams needed maintainable parsers without hand-writing lexers and recursive-descent parsers. The official README says it is widely used to build languages, tools, and frameworks, and the docs point to grammars-v4 as a companion repository of reusable grammars.

The ANTLR 4 line broadened adoption by supporting multiple code-generation targets. The README currently lists C++, C#, Dart, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python 3, Swift, TypeScript, and Go, with a dedicated Go runtime repository for Go module consumption while development still happens in the main repository.

How it is used

The package is used from the command line to turn a grammar into parser and lexer code, then optionally inspect parse trees during development. The official site's quick start shows installing the modern antlr4-tools wrapper, writing an Expr.g4 grammar, using antlr4-parse to visualize a parse tree, and running antlr4 to generate source files.

In package-manager culture, ANTLR sits with bison, yacc, ragel, tree-sitter, and compiler toolchains: it is not usually an end-user app, but it is a dependency that creates other code. That makes version pinning and generated-output reproducibility matter, especially because the README recommends regenerating parsers with each minor release.

Why package nerds care

ANTLR is a package nerd's parser-generator benchmark: old enough to have multiple major generations, portable enough to ship runtimes for many languages, and opinionated enough that its release policy is explicitly documented. The Homebrew formula name is the short historical name, while upstream's current docs distinguish the ANTLR 4 tool, runtimes, generated parsers, and related grammar collections.

It also illustrates why source packages and generated-code packages are different operational animals. Updating the CLI can imply regenerating checked-in parser code, updating runtime packages in several languages, and checking target-specific compatibility rather than treating the version as a simple semver patch.

Timeline

• 1989: Terence Parr is described by the official site as having worked on language tools since this year.
• 2012: ANTLR 4 documentation includes Pragmatic Bookshelf copyright and material from The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference.
• 2023: ANTLR 4.13.1 release notes show continued maintenance across C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, and Swift targets.
• 2024: ANTLR 4.13.2 is published as a minor update release.

Related projects

• grammars-v4 provides a large official collection of action-free grammars for use with ANTLR.
• antlr4-go is the dedicated Go runtime repository used for Go module imports while runtime development remains in antlr/antlr4.
• antlr4-tools is the official-site-recommended helper for installing Java and ANTLR and exposing antlr4 and antlr4-parse commands.

Sources

• Official ANTLR homepage, README, docs index, and GitHub release feed.