Assignment as expression in Antlr grammar - parsing

Question

I'm trying to extend the grammar of the Tiny Language to treat assignment as expression. Thus it would be valid to write
a = b = 1; // -> a = (b = 1)
a = 2 * (b = 1); // contrived but valid
a = 1 = 2; // invalid
Assignment differs from other operators in two aspects. It's right associative (not a big deal), and its left-hand side is has to be a variable. So I changed the grammar like this
statement: assignmentExpr | functionCall ...;
assignmentExpr: Identifier indexes? '=' expression;
expression: assignmentExpr | condExpr;
It doesn't work, because it contains a non-LL(*) decision. I also tried this variant:
assignmentExpr: Identifier indexes? '=' (expression | condExpr);
but I got the same error. I am interested in
This specific question
Given a grammar with a non-LL(*) decision, how to find the two paths that cause the problem
How to fix it

Answer 1

I think you can change your grammar like this to achieve the same, without using syntactic predicates:
statement: Expr ';' | functionCall ';'...;
Expr: Identifier indexes? '=' Expr | condExpr ;
condExpr: .... and so on;
I altered Bart's example with this idea in mind:
grammar TL;
options {
output=AST;
}
tokens {
ROOT;
}
parse
: stat+ EOF -> ^(ROOT stat+)
;
stat
: expr ';'
;
expr
: Id Assign expr -> ^(Assign Id expr)
| add
;
add
: mult (('+' | '-')^ mult)*
;
mult
: atom (('*' | '/')^ atom)*
;
atom
: Id
| Num
| '('! expr ')' !
;
Assign : '=' ;
Comment : '//' ~('\r' | '\n')* {skip();};
Id : 'a'..'z'+;
Num : '0'..'9'+;
Space : (' ' | '\t' | '\r' | '\n')+ {skip();};
And for the input:
a=b=4;
a = 2 * (b = 1);
you get following parse tree:

Answer 2

The key here is that you need to "assure" the parser that inside an expression, there is something ahead that satisfies the expression. This can be done using a syntactic predicate (the ( ... )=> parts in the add and mult rules).
A quick demo:
grammar TL;
options {
output=AST;
}
tokens {
ROOT;
ASSIGN;
}
parse
: stat* EOF -> ^(ROOT stat+)
;
stat
: expr ';' -> expr
;
expr
: add
;
add
: mult ((('+' | '-') mult)=> ('+' | '-')^ mult)*
;
mult
: atom ((('*' | '/') atom)=> ('*' | '/')^ atom)*
;
atom
: (Id -> Id) ('=' expr -> ^(ASSIGN Id expr))?
| Num
| '(' expr ')' -> expr
;
Comment : '//' ~('\r' | '\n')* {skip();};
Id : 'a'..'z'+;
Num : '0'..'9'+;
Space : (' ' | '\t' | '\r' | '\n')+ {skip();};
which will parse the input:
a = b = 1; // -> a = (b = 1)
a = 2 * (b = 1); // contrived but valid
into the following AST: