Re: Formal description of Org files

["Gustav Wikström" <gustav.erik@gmail.com>]

Ah, yes. I've seen that and I really really admire your work. :-) What
I'm aiming at is something more standardised. Something that can be
used to generate language lexers and parsers in other programming
languages.. But, as I stated a moment ago in another mail to the list
- I don't really know the power of such a standardised grammar and of
what can be done if it was there.. I only envision the possibilities.
;-)

Best regards
Gustav

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Gustav Wikström <gustav.erik@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> There was a discussion many years back about a formal description of
>> Org files [1]. In some way that might be achieved now in org-elements,
>> but that still is heavily bound to elisp.
>>
>> So my question is; have there been more discussions of constructing
>> such a formal grammar? Maybe in EBNF form. I suspect getting every
>> aspect of Org mode into such a description would be difficult. But
>> imagine the possibilities. Tools such as ANTLR and similar would
>> straight away have a way of parsing Org mode. Org mode source files
>> could be parsed in many other languages, simplifying the process of
>> expanding Org mode to other platforms ( Android & iOS, web ).
>>
>> Further rant; To me Org mode should be less about Emacs and more about
>> the source file format. Let Emacs be the main carrier, but let Org
>> mode also expand into other domains. One way to simplify this might be
>> to provide the formal description so that other tools might be easier
>> to develop based on this grammar.
>>
>> (For me, the biggest limitation of Org mode is lacking tools to
>> utilize it on the run. The aim of this is thus to feed thoughts on how
>> to simplify processes that can expand Org mode into those "more
>> mobile" domains).
>
> See
>
>   (info "(org) Org syntax")
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou