Hand-written rec-descent parser of GCC-4.1 is WRONG!!!

[Gary Funck]

The following paper provides some background on the difficulties
encountered with parsing C++:

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/irwin01generated.html

Abstract: C++ is an extraordinarily difficult programming language to parse. The language cannot readily be approximated with an LL
or LR grammar (regardless of lookahead size), and syntax analysis depends on semantic disambiguation. While conventional (LALR(1)
and LL(k)) parser generation tools have been used to build C++ parsers, the effort involved in grammar modification and custom code
development is substantial, rivaling the effort of constructing a parser manually.
[...]

Link to PDF: http://tinyurl.com/3remp

And a related thread on the GCC mailing list back in 2002:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2002-08/msg00085.html