Core syntax error handling

Ian Hickson wrote to <www-style@w3.org> on 22 February 2003 in
"Re: Proprietary identifier names" (<mid:Pine.LNX.4.50.0302220527170.3785-100000@dhalsim.dreamhost.com>):

> [...] I am so strongly in favour of making it very explicit that any
> stream of characters should have a well defined interpretation.

I agree with this statement, but not with the interpretation that you wish to enforce.

> At a basic level it is very simple: you hit an unexpected character, and
> therefore parse the declaration as an unknown stream of tokens, honouring
> the nesting of {}, [], and (), and the special rules for '' and ""
> strings, and /* */ comments, until you reach the end of the declaration
> or the end of the block.

What declaration? What block? These constructs have clear
syntactic definitions and the case you describe does not match
those definitions. Any parsing past the unexpected character is
really just guessing on the part of the parser.

If you write a new syntax, we will at least have some basis from
which to consider dropping the old core syntax, despite the
latter's promise of indefinite longevity and stability.

-- 
Etan Wexler <mailto:ewexler@stickdog.com>.
Let's get healthy, Alice.

Received on Thursday, 27 February 2003 05:59:44 UTC