(35) The rows of Table 2.2.7.1![[link]](/graphics/greenarr.gif)
are called `productions'. Productions are rules for constructing sentences in a language. They are written in terms of `terminal symbols' and `non-terminal symbols'. `Terminal symbols' are what actually appear in a language. For example, 'poodle' might be given as a string of terminal symbols in some language discussing dogs. Non-terminal symbols are the higher-level constructs of the language, e.g. sentences, clauses, etc. For example 〈DOG〉 might be given as a non-terminal symbol in some language discussing dogs. Productions may be used to infer rules for parsing the language. For example,![[Scheme scheme9]](/schemes/Gach2o2scheme9.gif)
might be given as a rule telling us what names of types of dogs we are allowed to write in this language. In this table, terminal symbols (i.e. terminal character strings) are enclosed in single quotes. To avoid confusion, the terminal symbol consisting of a single quote (i.e. an apostrophe) is indicated by 〈single_quote〉 and the terminal symbol consisting of a double quote is indicated by 〈double_quote〉. The printable space character is indicated by 〈SP〉, the horizontal tab character by 〈HT〉 and the end of a line by 〈eol〉. To allow for the occurrence of a semicolon as the initial character of an unquoted character string, provided it is not the first character in a line of text, the special symbol 〈noteol〉 is used below to indicate any character that is not interpretable as a line terminator. The cases of context sensitivity involving the beginning of text fields and the ends of quoted strings are discussed below, but they are most commonly resolved in a lexical scan.
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<CIF>
|
<Comments>? <WhiteSpace>? { <DataBlock> { <WhiteSpace> <DataBlock> }* { <WhiteSpace> }? }?
|
yes
|
|
<DataBlock>
|
<DataBlockHeading> {<WhiteSpace> { <DataItems> | <SaveFrame>} }*
|
yes
|
|
<DataBlockHeading>
|
<DATA_> { <NonBlankChar> }+
|
no
|
|
<SaveFrame>
|
<SaveFrameHeading> { <WhiteSpace> <DataItems> }+ <WhiteSpace> <SAVE_>
|
yes
|
|
<SaveFrameHeading>
|
<SAVE_> { <NonBlankChar> }+
|
no
|
|
<DataItems>
|
<Tag> <WhiteSpace> <Value> | <LoopHeader> <LoopBody>
|
yes
|
|
<LoopHeader>
|
<LOOP_> {<WhiteSpace> <Tag>}+
|
no
|
|
<LoopBody>
|
<Value> { <WhiteSpace> <Value> }*
|
yes
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<DATA_>
|
{'D'|'d'} {'A'|'a'} {'T'|'t'} {'A'|'a'} '_'
|
no
|
|
<LOOP_>
|
{'L'|'l'} {'O'|'o'} {'O'|'o'} {'P'|'p'} '_'
|
no
|
|
<GLOBAL_>
|
{'G'|'g'} {'L'|'l'} {'O'|'o'} {'B'|'b'} {'A'|'a'} {'L'|'l'} '_'
|
no
|
|
<SAVE_>
|
{'S'|'s'} {'A'|'a'} {'V'|'v'} {'E'|'e'} '_'
|
no
|
|
<STOP_>
|
{'S'|'s'} {'T'|'t'} {'O'|'o'} {'P'|'p'} '_'
|
no
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<Tag>
|
'_'{ <NonBlankChar>}+
|
no
|
|
<Value>
|
{ '.' | '?' | <Numeric> | <CharString> | <TextField> }
|
yes
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<Numeric>
|
{ <Number> | <Number> '(' <UnsignedInteger> ')' }
|
no
|
|
<Number>
|
{<Integer> | <Float> }
|
no
|
|
<Integer>
|
{{ '+' | '-' }? <UnsignedInteger>
|
no
|
|
<Float>
|
{ <Integer><Exponent> | { {'+'|'-'} ? { {<Digit>} * '.' <UnsignedInteger> } | { <Digit>} + '.' } } {<Exponent>} ? } }
|
no
|
|
<Exponent>
|
{ {'e' | 'E' } | {'e' | 'E' } { '+' | '-' } } <UnsignedInteger>
|
no
|
|
<UnsignedInteger>
|
{ <Digit> }+
|
no
|
|
<Digit>
|
{ '0' | '1' | '2' | '3' | '4' | '5' | '6' | '7' | '8' | '9' }
|
no
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<CharString>
|
<UnquotedString> | <SingleQuotedString> | <DoubleQuotedString>
|
yes
|
|
<eol><UnquotedString>
|
<eol><OrdinaryChar> {<NonBlankChar>}*
|
yes
|
|
<noteol><UnquotedString>
|
<noteol>{<OrdinaryChar>|';'} {<NonBlankChar>}*
|
yes
|
|
<SingleQuotedString><WhiteSpace>
|
<single_quote>{<AnyPrintChar>}* <single_quote> <WhiteSpace>
|
yes
|
|
<DoubleQuotedString><WhiteSpace>
|
<double_quote> {<AnyPrintChar>}* <double_quote> <WhiteSpace>
|
yes
|
|
<TextField>
|
{ <SemiColonTextField> }
|
yes
|
|
<eol><SemiColonTextField>
|
<eol>';' { {<AnyPrintChar>}* <eol> {{<TextLeadChar> {<AnyPrintChar>}*}? <eol>}* } ';'
|
yes
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<WhiteSpace>
|
{ <SP>|<HT>|<eol>|<TokenizedComments>}+
|
yes
|
|
<Comments>
|
{ '#' {<AnyPrintChar>}* <eol>}+
|
yes
|
|
<TokenizedComments>
|
{ <SP>|<HT>|<eol>|}+ <Comments>
|
yes
|
|
Syntactic unit
|
Syntax
|
Case sensitive?
|
|
<OrdinaryChar>
'
|
{ '!'|'%'|'&'|'('|')'|'*'|'+'|','|'-'|'.'|'/'|'0'|'1'|'2'|'3'|'4'|'5'| '6'|'7'|'8'|'9'|':'|'<'|'='|'>'|'?'|'@'|'A'|'B'|'C'|'D'|'E'|'F'|'G'|'H'| 'I'|'J'|'K'|'L'|'M'|'N'|'O'|'P'|'Q'|'R'|'S'|'T'|'U'|'V'|'W'|'X'|'Y'|'Z'| '\'|'^'|'`'|'a'|'b'|'c'|'d'|'e'|'f'|'g'|'h'|'i'|'j'|'k'|'l'|'m'|'n'|'o'| 'p'|'q'|'r'|'s'|'t'|'u'|'v'|'w'|'x'|'y'|'z'|'{'|'|'|'}'|'~' }
|
yes
|
|
<NonBlankChar>
|
<OrdinaryChar>|<double_quote>|'#'|'$'|<single_quote>|'_' |';'|'['|']'
|
yes
|
|
<TextLeadChar>
|
<OrdinaryChar>|<double_quote>|'#'|'$'|<single_quote>|'_'|<SP>|<HT>|'['|']'
|
yes
|
|
<AnyPrintChar>
|
<OrdinaryChar>|<double_quote>|'#'|'$'|<single_quote>|'_'|<SP>|<HT>|';'|'['|']'
|
yes
|
|
(36) Productions can be used to produce documents, or equivalently to check a document to see if it is valid in this grammar. The angle brackets delimit names for the syntactic units (the `non-terminal symbols') being defined. The curly braces enclose alternatives separated by vertical bars and/or followed by a plus sign for `one or more', an asterisk for `zero or more' or a question mark for `zero or one'.
(37) In most cases, each production has a single non-terminal symbol in the syntactic unit being defined. However, in some cases, both the syntactic unit and the syntax begin or end with some common symbol. This indicates that a specific context is required in order for the rule to be applied. This is done because the initial semicolon of a semicolon-delimited text field only has meaning at the beginning of a line, and quoted strings may contain their initial quoting character provided the embedded quoting character is not immediately followed by white space. This `context-sensitive' notation is unusual in defining computer languages (although very common in the full specifications of many computer and non-computer languages). This context-sensitive notation greatly simplifies the definitions and is simple to implement. The formal definitions are elaborated below.
(38) In the present revision, the production for 〈TextField〉 is a trivial equivalence to 〈SemiColonTextField〉. The redundancy is retained to permit possible future extensions to text fields, in particular the possible introduction of a bracket-delimited text value.
