Re: Thoughts on pragmas and iXML

On Wed, Feb 05, 2025 at 07:56:01PM +0000, Norm Tovey-Walsh scripsit:
> Now that we’re discussing pragmas again, I think it’s critical that we
> resolve the requirements *before* we begin discussing design. The
> requirements document that we’re currently discussing is *very*
> careful not to make any statements about the design.

Because it took me a bit to find it, let me confirm that the
requirements document is this one?

https://github.com/invisibleXML/ixml/blob/master/proposals/pragma_req.md

Sticking as well as I can to "what" and not "how", I think there are a
few things that might be absent from the requirements.

Can a pragma interact with another pragma? (For example, perhaps a more
narrowly scoped pragma could suppress the effects of a grammar-scoped
pragma within its own narrower scope; would that be allowed?)

"Parse tree" is not the same as "document"; does Rule 1 mean that a
pragma cannot provide dynamic information that would go in the prolog of
the XML document containing the serialized parse tree produced by the
grammar? (for example, a time stamp of some kind.)

If I'm reading this right, there is no way to use a pragma to pass in a
value; you could not use a pragma to parameterize an ixml grammar with,
for example, the character being used as the field separator in
notionally comma-separated values?

As written, I think multiple pragmas with the same name and different
optional data are permitted. This seems potentially problematic.


Thanks!
Graydon

--  
Graydon Saunders  | graydonish@fastmail.com
Þæs oferéode, ðisses swá mæg.
-- Deor  ("That passed, so may this.")

Received on Wednesday, 5 February 2025 23:53:22 UTC