Formal Grammar — some thoughts

[A. Pagaltzis]

* Michel Fortin <michel.fortin at michelf.com> [2006-07-31 21:05]:

> Le 30 juil. 2006 à 21:29, Allan Odgaard a écrit :

> >Now try the same on these two lines of text:

> >

> >    This `is raw [text`](#)

> >

> >    This is a [`link](#) and more text`

> >

> >If you choose to replace links with an md5 first, then the

> >result of converting the first line will be wrong, whereas if

> >you choose to convert raw first, the second line will be

> >wrong.

> 

> What's wrong and right here? It could be argued that since it's

> not defined in the syntax description whichever comes first

> should be the rule and no priority should be given to one

> syntax construct over another,


No, it’s pretty clear. A backtick starts a sequence in which each
character is interpreted literally. I don’t see how there can be
any question: within code spans, there is no markup.


> but the fact is that it's still undefined and that John's

> reference implementation prioritize code spans over links.


It does the right thing according to the syntax definition.

As it so happens, this case is easy to model with a proper
parser.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>