On 11/10/07, Merlijn van Deen <valhallasw(a)arctus.nl> wrote:
To change the format to XML (and updating the wikitext
format at the same
time) means we need four important things: an 'old wikitext'->XML
converter, a XML->'good wikitext' converter, a 'good
wikitext'->XML
converter and a XML->HTML parser. (s/converter/parser, if you care about
the exact words). The 'good wikitext' and html parsers should be fairly
easy; the first is just plain hard.
No, the first isn't hard, for a simple reason: you just edit the
current parser a bit. Instead of outputting HTML, it outputs the XML
format of your choice. In other words, you change the handful of bits
that actually create the output string, while leaving all the twisty
logic untouched. Of course this would take some hours to do, but it's
not that it would be a hard problem, it would just take a bit of work.
The hard part, IMO, is probably creating a wikitext format that can
roundtrip with XML. Has anyone tried this kind of thing? Has it
worked? Or really, to start with, has anyone created parseable
wikitext period?
(Although as far as I can see wikicreole
isn't available as context free grammar either..)
There was some discussion about this when Wikicreole inclusion was
discussed. Apparently the parseability was completely ignored when
formulating the syntax (as with MW syntax), so it's probably easier to
parse than MediaWiki mainly by virtue of having fewer features.
On 11/10/07, Soo Reams <soo(a)sooreams.com> wrote:
* I would volunteer but I probably lack both skill and
time.
I must say, perhaps a bit cynically, that this is the best summary of
the discussion that anyone's given so far. There's nothing wrong with
talk, but it's not going to amount to much if nobody much is being
talked *to*.