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adverbs vs users
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adverbs vs users

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Up: Notes

Reference

Scanless DSL as of 2017-02-23

Found Marpa.R2.DSL.Structure. TODO: Check against my tables below.

Comparison charts

Adverb/User Comparison Chart

Notes and questions

  1. A close reading of DSL.pod is necessary to find that empty rules are considered to be a special case of an rhs alternative. See Scanless DSL: empty rule

IMHO this part needs an emphasis of some kind, as it makes reading the remainder of the document easier, whenever it talks about RHS alternatives.

The role of quantified rules should be clarified too I believe. In some places I believe that an adverb applies to quantified rules as well, with this not explicitly stated (See "name", "action", "bless").

  1. It should be noted that while some of the descriptions of adverbs and context cross-confirm each other, not all them do. I will use the marker XREF whereever I put information into a table which came from the other description and is thus not cross-confirmed.

  2. On another note, while the provided meta-grammer using a single set of rules for the adverbs, thus moving validation of their applicability past the parser, I see it as possible to give each context its own variant of <adverb list> which references only the allowed adverbs for that context. That way there is no need to validate past the parser, the grammar ensured it already. And this would be a third cross-check against the human-readable descriptions.

Strongly tempted to make that happen here.

  1. "The action adverb is allowed for An RHS alternative, in which the action is for the alternative."

This feels incomplete. Nothing is said about quantified rules. While empty rules are not mentioned either

Note also that it is explicitly specified to not be allowed for L0 rules at all.

  1. Technically it seems that rules with precedence are possible for L0. It does not really make sense, as the structure of the matched lexeme will not be affected by this, but still.

So, is the "assoc" adverb allowed in L0 priority rule/alternatives ?

  1. Is the "name" adverb allowed for quantified rules ?

  2. Nothing is said at all about where the "rank" adverb is allowed, or not.

Adverbs

Adverb Notes
action Scanless DSL: action
association Scanless DSL: assoc
bless Scanless DSL: bless
event Scanless DSL: event
latm Scanless DSL: latm
name Scanless DSL: name
null-ranking Scanless DSL: null-ranking
pause Scanless DSL: pause
priority Scanless DSL: priority
proper Scanless DSL: proper
rank Scanless DSL: rank
separator Scanless DSL: separator

Adverb contexts

Context Notes
:default Scanless DSL: :default
:discard Scanless DSL: :discard
:lexeme Scanless DSL: :lexeme
discard default Scanless DSL: discard default
g1 alternative Scanless DSL: alternative
g1 empty rule Scanless DSL: empty rule
g1 quant. rule Scanless DSL: quantified rule
l0 alternative Scanless DSL: alternative
l0 empty rule Scanless DSL: empty rule
l0 quant. rule Scanless DSL: quantified rule
lexeme default Scanless DSL: lexeme default

Adverbs versus possible contexts

Note that empty rules are not considered separately here due to them being a special case of an RHS alternative. That makes the table a bit shorter.

Adverb Context Notes
action Scanless DSL: action
:default yes (XREF: G1)
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative yes - Applies to the alternative
g1 quant. rule XREF: yes
l0 alternative no
l0 quant. rule no
lexeme default yes - For all lexemes which do not specifically set their own
association Scanless DSL: assoc
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative yes
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
bless Scanless DSL: bless
:default XREF: yes, G1
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative ? XREF: yes
g1 quant. rule ?
l0 alternative ?
l0 quant. rule ?
lexeme default XREF: yes
event Scanless DSL: event
:default
:discard XREF: yes, discard event
:lexeme yes - Names the event for 'pause'. Error if 'pause' is missing.
discard default XREF: yes
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
latm Scanless DSL: latm
:default
:discard
:lexeme yes
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default yes
name Scanless DSL: name
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative yes
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative yes
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
null-ranking Scanless DSL: null-ranking
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule yes
l0 alternative no
l0 quant. rule no
lexeme default
pause Scanless DSL: pause
:default
:discard
:lexeme yes - Declares a parse event. (Self: Warn if "event" is missing, unnamed events are strongly discouraged)
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
priority Scanless DSL: priority
:default
:discard
:lexeme yes
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
proper Scanless DSL: proper
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule yes - Ignored if there is no "separator". (Self: Add warning)
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule yes - Ignored if there is no "separator". (Self: Add warning)
lexeme default
rank Scanless DSL: rank
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule
lexeme default
separator Scanless DSL: separator
:default
:discard
:lexeme
discard default
g1 alternative
g1 quant. rule yes
l0 alternative
l0 quant. rule yes
lexeme default

Possible contexts versus adverbs

Context Adverb Notes
:default Scanless DSL: :default
action yes - Affects G1 rules
association
bless yes - Affects G1 rules
event
latm
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
:discard Scanless DSL: :discard
action
association
bless
event yes - L0 - Implies a pause (discard event only)
latm
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
:lexeme Scanless DSL: :lexeme
action
association
bless
event yes - L0 - If specified, pause has to be as well. Error if not
latm XREF: yes
name
null-ranking
pause yes - L0 - If specified, event should be as well. Unnamed events are discouraged
priority yes
proper
rank
separator
discard default Scanless DSL: discard default
action
association
bless
event yes
latm
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
g1 alternative Scanless DSL: Alternatives
action yes
association yes
bless yes
event
latm
name XREF: yes
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
g1 empty rule Scanless DSL: Empty rules
action yes
association XREF: yes
bless yes
event
latm
name XREF: yes
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
g1 quant. rule Scanless DSL: Quantified
action yes
association
bless yes
event
latm
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper yes
rank
separator yes
l0 alternative Scanless DSL: Alternatives
action XREF: no
association yes__?__
bless
event
latm
name XREF: yes
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
l0 empty rule Scanless DSL: Empty rules
action XREF: no
association yes__?__
bless
event
latm
name XREF: yes
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator
l0 quant. rule Scanless DSL: Quantified
action XREF: no
association
bless
event
latm
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper yes
rank
separator yes
lexeme default Scanless DSL: lexeme default
action yes - L0
association
bless yes - L0
event
latm yes - L0
name
null-ranking
pause
priority
proper
rank
separator