Particularly I had no idea I can add a closure to the grammar and use it as part of a virtual main package

It's not really a closure. The block is inlined at the start of the generated parser code. You should check out Grammar.pm after executing: 

use Parse::RecDescent
my $grammar = ...;
Parse::RecDescent->Precompile($grammar, "Grammar");

[download]

That block is documented as Start-up Actions.

I particularly do not understand the '' construct. it will always match right?

Yes, but remember that P::RD removes /$skip/ from the input before every terminal in the grammar. The current value of skip is '\\s*', so '' removes all leading whitespace.

That whole thing allows blank lines between key_value, but not within key_value.

In reply to Re^3: Parse::RecDescent trouble by ikegami
in thread Parse::RecDescent trouble by ribasushi

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.