From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>
Subject: Re: Re: unnumbered subsections in latex export
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:09:53 -0400
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In-Reply-To: Message from Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>
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To: Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>
Cc: Bastien <bzg@altern.org>, nicholas.dokos@hp.com, emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com>

Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> wrote:

> Hi Jambunathan,
> 
> Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> writes:
> >
> >> I agree that the org-exporter currently does its job very well. The
> >> astounding utility of org-mode is ample proof of the value of releasing
> >> early; even if the exporter is not as elegant as a modern compiler, it
> >> works. :)
> >>
> >> That said, I very much support Nicolas' proposal. 
> >
> > A quick (prototype) exporter demoing Nicolas's proposal could be
> > developed by using my new org-html.el in under few hours.
> >
> > Think of it this way: If something could be XML-ified it could be
> > lispified. My exporter already has a common core that emits html and odt
> > and it is a matter of altering few callbacks so that it generates a
> > lispy list instead of XML.
> 
> Thanks for all the hard work on your exporter and the rewrite! I look
> forward to looking at it more closely very soon.
> 
> In the meantime, does anyone have advice on how to start creating a
> formal syntax definition for org-mode? Any good links or resources we
> might check out?

EBNF is pretty much the standard metasyntax for context-free grammars (check Wikipedia).
However, I doubt org is context-free, so EBNF might need extensions to deal with it.
Or it can do the context-free part and any context-dependent stuff is superimposed on
that.

Nick

> 
> I'm guessing that writing a formal definition is more complex than
> simply defining org-mode syntax in prose---that we are after something a
> little more formal and symbolic than "a headline is demarcated by one or
> more asterisks beginning at column 0 of a new line...." Is that correct?
> 
> Best,
> Matt
>