Re: A28: syntax of markup declarations?

Just a quick note:
> I have proposed an example of a conforming subset that is much simpler
> than the full DTD syntax. Your BNF has added back complex things that
> I took out (like comments within declarations).

Actually my BNF does not include comments at all.  I noted that I would
expect the tokeniser to deal with them (as in most programming languages),
which is much simpler than they way they are defined in 8879, where the
grammar actually includes the whitespace.  I assumed that your grammar
was treating them the same way.

I do not believe that I added anything that wasn't in your grammar,
but if I did, I'll gladly correct it, if it is of use to anyone.
I made it by editing your grammar to make it regular in the sense
of parser-generating tools -- e.g. no use of + ? or *, but pure BNF.

Which is easier to read depends on what you're used to, of course --
your form (like that of ISO8879) is much terser, but is not as widespread
in computer science.

The lack of comments wouldn't matter too much to me -- although I would
simply say it was a badly designed language and shiver and say ugh :-) --
because I could define entities for my comments,
    <!Entity comment1 "STRESS is for words that are spoken more loudly">
I have done that experimentally in the past for element descriptions,
so the parser/application can access them.

Lee

Received on Tuesday, 8 October 1996 16:49:05 UTC