I suppose you could call the packrat cache an 'infinite lookahead buffer'.
Arbitrary backtracking is a property of PEGs though - you don't need Packrat for that. The original 1970s Ullman paper that this all goes back to is 'parsing algorithms with [arbitrary] backtrack'. Packrat made it linear.
These differences probably aren't worth worrying about too much though.
Arbitrary backtracking is a property of PEGs though - you don't need Packrat for that. The original 1970s Ullman paper that this all goes back to is 'parsing algorithms with [arbitrary] backtrack'. Packrat made it linear.
These differences probably aren't worth worrying about too much though.