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Re: Backus-Naur Form for CIF

Sorry to be a stickler, but, even though CIF's are star files, an
implementation of star BNF is not an implementation of the proposed CIF
BNF.  If we are formally proposing a CIF BNF, implementation should be
carried through to working code at least once, and preferably more than
once.  Peter has made a good suggestion.

  -- Herbert

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On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Nick Spadaccini wrote:

> On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
> 
> > I support this requirement for testing. I believe that the IETF requires 
> > two independent implementations of a proposed protocol to show that it is 
> > workable. I have read the BNF by eye but have no comments (other than to 
> > agree it is an important document) . In principle it should be tested against:
> >          - example files (both conforming and non-conforming)
> >          - yacc-like tools.
> > I know this is tedious - and furthermore I am not offering to do it :-(  - 
> > but it is a necessary part of the process.
> > 
> > (I hope to write more about CIF tools in general shortly).
> 
> I have these for star, a yacc description which is the basis for starbase
> and a javacc description which is the basis for dREL, the methods language
> we have embedded into the STAR dictionaries.
> 
> These are two independent implementations, the first using an LALR grammar
> spec and the latter using an LL(k) grammar. I also have (as we all do) a
> suite of conforming and non-conforming test decks. 
> 
> Nick
> 
> --------------------------------
> Dr Nick Spadaccini
> Department of Computer Science              voice: +(61 8) 9380 3452
> University of Western Australia               fax: +(61 8) 9380 1089
> Nedlands, Perth,  WA  6907                 email: nick@cs.uwa.edu.au
> AUSTRALIA                        web: http://www.cs.uwa.edu.au/~nick
> 
> 
>