On 22/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm working on writing out an EBNF description of Wikitext at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wikiWikitext_Metasyntax , which I hear is much needed, but have encountered a snag. I don't think EBNF has the power to describe Wikitext. If anyone here can work out how EBNF can describe Wikitext's system for bullet points, I'd like to see it. The problem is that bullet points can build on each other, except each new level has to retain the markup from the old level, plus a new symbol. e.g. **#* then **#* * then **#** * then **#*** # etc.
Put it on MediaWiki.org, not Meta.
On the topic of "things that need to be done" if writing an EBNF of Wikitext isn't going to be beneficial for MediaWiki's longstanding success, I'll not bother, but is there anything that needs to be done like this to create a standard?
Defined parser behaviour is one of the prerequisites for a parser rewrite, IIRC.
Rob Church