[Mediawiki-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext

[David Gerard]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com>
Date: 22-Jan-2007 00:00
Subject: [Foundation-l] EBNF of Wikitext
To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org


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.

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?

Please forward to any other mailing lists in which this might be
appropriate. Thanks!
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