Re: [boost] Reference documentation: one approach

From: Anthony Williams (anthony.williamsNOSPAM_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-30 09:47:07

Joel de Guzman writes:
 > 
 > ----- Original Message ----- 
 > From: "Peter Simons" <simons_at_[hidden]>
 > 
 > 
 > > I'd like to contribute two points to the list of requirements:
 > > 
 > >  - The documentation system MUST have support for arbitrary character
 > >    sets, preferably Unicode.
 > > 
 > >  - Graphical editing front-ends should be available for major
 > >    platforms. 
 > 
 > Is there a (E)BNF definition for LaTeX?

I doubt it, as macros can change the meanings of each and every character that
is read subsequent to the invocation of the macro. You can actually make TeX
take XML as input by preloading a set of macros.

 > If so, where can
 > I find it? And also, how good is the definition? Not
 > like C++ I hope.
 > 
 > May I also add the requirement that the target language should be
 > 
 > --> formally defined in (E)BNF

Why? I presume for the following:

 > --> easily parsable

Still why? If there are existing tools to convert the output, or we can write
something that does (e.g. use LaTeX itself to generate other stuff, much as
TeX4ht does), why does the language have to be parsable with a generic parser.

 > --> easily generatable

For auto-generating documentation, I presume. You could write a (La)TeX macro
package to handle an easily-generatable input format, if the standard format
we adopted wasn't good enough.

Anthony
-- 
Anthony Williams
Senior Software Engineer, Beran Instruments Ltd.
Remove NOSPAM when replying, for timely response.