Re: Suggested dual human/binary interface for proc/devfs

[Bill Wendling]

Also sprach Mike Porter:
} On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Vardhan Varma wrote:
} 
} > 
} > 	On subject of parsing, and genrating the text file:-
} > 1. parsing and generating is easy, if syntax is regular-expression rather
} > 	than CFG. 
} 
} What is CFG?
} 
Context Free Grammar.

} > 2. significance of white space - [ \t]
} > 	just visually appeal
} 
} Mostly.  Some people do feel, myself included, that newline can
} serve as a statement seperator.  So ';' and '\n' are equivalent,
} with an ending '\' serving to concatentate two lines.
} 
Sure...They have equivalent uses.

} > 3. significance of new lines - [\n]
} > 	putting all related info on a single line frees parser of a
} > 	'state machine'	. This may ease error recovery slightly
} 
} Why?  At best, it makes it easier to say 'error on line n', but
} you really should point to the exact character in error.
} 
Sometimes it's hard to point to exact character in error.

-- 
|| Bill Wendling			[e-mail]