"David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fbad4e140909241512h5c56dd09xe6d3d7de0603f968@mail.gmail.com...
2009/9/24 Platonides <Platonides(a)gmail.com>om>:
Brian wrote:
> * wikitext parsing would be much faster if
the language was well defined
> and
> we could use flex/bison/etc...
> Have you read the archives?
> It has been tried. Several times.
> There's even a mailing list for that.
> Getting a formal definition of ~90% of the wikitext syntax is easy. The
> other 10% drived nuts everyone trying to do it hard enough, so far.
> Keep trying, but build over what's already done.
The 10% drove people off cliffs because it is, pretty much by definition,
the horrible unexpected behaviour that is a *consequence* of not having a
formal definition. Writing a formal definition is not impossible if you
require that it be sensible at the final reading. The parser is, in many
places, *not* sensible, and naturally those quirks are difficult to
describe, but they're also undesirable overall. A true move to a formal
language definition involves action from both ends: writing a formal
definition that follows the current parser in general, *and* being prepared
to alter the parser to remove some of the more egregious deviations from
expected behaviour.
--HM