Re: OWL Abstract Syntax

Sean raises a number of points here that are somethat more than editorial
changes, but are not big changes.

I have made changes to the abstract syntax document to address his
concerns.  The changes amount to:
1/ Using keyword(...) uniformly throughout the document.
2/ A few other minor changes.

Parsing the revised OWL Abstract Syntax does require a bit of lookahead,
but it does fit within yacc, except for restrictions where it is difficult
to distinguish between restrictions on datatype and individual properties.
(I actually have a yacc grammar for OWL now that finesses this.)

peter



From: Sean Bechhofer <seanb@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: OWL Abstract Syntax
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 11:08:38 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)

> Some brief comments on the latest version of the OWL Abstract Syntax
> document (prompted by trying to use the abstract syntax in a tutorial
> style document).
> 
> o The mixed use of "feature=X" and "feature(X)" forms is ugly and
>   potentially confusing -- e.g. cardinalities use "()" and someValuesFrom
>   uses "=". Why not stick to one or the other?
> 
> o There are places where parsing could be unnecessarily tricky, i.e.,
>   something like "union ( person restriction (...))" where restriction
>   could actually be a class called restriction or the start of some restriction
>   syntax.
> 
> Tidying up the syntax a little and adopting some consistent conventions
> (e.g. keywords always followed by parentheses) should alleviate both these
> problems I think.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 	Sean
> 
> -- 
> Sean Bechhofer
> seanb@cs.man.ac.uk
> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~seanb