Re: Grammar analysis

"Liam R. E. Quin" <liam@fromoldbooks.org> writes:
> Maybe, in ixml,
>
>    -empty: .
>
> could help?? Then use empty in productions. Might make ambiguities
> though, hmm.

Just using () helps:

  rule: name, "=", value; () .

And you can certainly define your own terminal “empty”, but that won’t
help with examples like the one that started this thread where the
author chose not to do that.

> The ixml syntax is already a little unusual, or at least i find it
> unfamiliar, and adding more symbols isn't going to help with that. But
> a styling convention might.

All syntax is unfamiliar until you get, uh, familiar with it, so I’m not
persuaded by that assertion.

I have had occasion to use two other EBNF syntaxes recently. Near as I
can tell, they’re all a little unusual.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica