Lout parsing

[Basile STARYNKEVITCH]

Hello Jeff,

Hello All,

Regarding Lout parsing, I notice that, besides the enthousiastic Lout
users -ie the member of the Lout mailing list- the only use of Lout I
found on the Internet is in programs converting some stuff (usually
SGML related) into Lout. 

For instance, the typeset program by
<address@hidden> at ftp
irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de:/.5.1/vol5/people/jerry/typeset-0.6.9.tar.gz 
http://ibch01.inf.tu-dresden.de:8001/doc/typeset/index.html
converts SGML stuff into Lout. I believe that Linuxdoc and SGML-QWERTZ
also does likewise.

So, I think that Lout parsing should take into account that some of it
input is not human typed but computer generated. Hence, Lout
tokenization should take into account, and shouldn't introduce complex
lexical rules.

This is, in my opinion, yet another argument for having simple lexical
rules, in particular:

* No line length limitation in Lout input.

* No specific processing of end of line or newline character. (All
space chars (space, tab, return, newline, verticaltab.. etc, ie all
isspace(3C) characters) should be treated equal.

* No fancy or complex parsing rules. 

As a matter of fact, I'm considering switching to SGML for my
documents, and use or customize some (or build another) SGML to Lout
converter.

And I think that Lout should at least mention (and perhaps support)
SGML in the documentation (or FAQ or WWW). I would even say that a
HTML to Lout converter could make Lout much more popular.


Thanks for reading.



-- 

N.B. Any opinions expressed here are solely mine, and not of my organization.
N.B. Les opinions exprimees ici me sont personnelles et n engagent pas le CEA.

Please cite a **pertinent part** of my mail in all answers
Veuillez citer une **partie pertinente** de mon courrier dans vos reponses



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Basile STARYNKEVITCH   ----  Commissariat a l Energie Atomique (civil)
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