From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Sat Jul 14 18:16:54 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 15 Jul 2001 01:16:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 77772 invoked from network); 15 Jul 2001 01:16:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 15 Jul 2001 01:16:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO relay3-gui.server.ntli.net) (194.168.4.200) by mta2 with SMTP; 15 Jul 2001 01:16:53 -0000 Received: from m676-mp1-cvx1b.bir.ntl.com ([62.255.42.164] helo=andrew) by relay3-gui.server.ntli.net with smtp (Exim 3.03 #2) id 15LaHg-0000XB-00; Sun, 15 Jul 2001 02:01:21 +0100 To: "Jay Kominek" , Subject: RE: [lojban] the formal grammars' utility Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 02:16:01 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" Jay: > On Sat, 14 Jul 2001, And Rosta wrote: > > > 1. What use is the EBNF grammar, given that it can't be used instead of > > YACC? > > It is quite a bit more human readable. > > I believe there are some parser generators in existance which can digest > various forms of BNF, too. > > > 2. Is there a downloadable version of YACC ordered alphabetically (or > > in any way such that one knows whereabouts in the rule list to find the > > expansion for a given node)? > > It would be easy enough to whip up some Perl to alphabetize the > productions, easy enough for you; not for me. > but I fail to see the utility of that. Nearly ever text > viewer in existance provides searching functionality, simply search for, > say, the string 'sumti' at the beginning of a line. calling up the search function & typing in the search string is laborious. An internally hyperlinked document would be useful. But anyway, I was wanting a hardcopy, which I'll just do for myself by brute force. > > 3. Has anybody created a more succinct but unabbreviated (and, ideally, > > more intuitive) version of the YACC grammar? > > That seems to be the point of the EBNF grammar. The YACC grammar is for > machines. YACC's syntax was not meant to be intuitive, since YACC is > meant for making compilers, quite possibly one of the most arcane tasks > one can participate in. > > Condensing the YACC grammar may not be possible without violating LALR(1). > Whoever constructed it ought to know. I was looking for a convenient reference guide. Maybe I'll try to make one if I have time. --And.