Path: csiph.com!1.us.feeder.erje.net!3.us.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!border-1.nntp.ord.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: George Neuner Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: syntax complexity Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2023 13:49:19 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Sender: johnl@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <23-02-054@comp.compilers> References: <23-02-045@comp.compilers> <23-02-047@comp.compilers> <23-02-050@comp.compilers> <29156_1676600565_63EEE4F4_29156_1009_1_23-02-051@comp.compilers> <23-02-052@comp.compilers> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="52881"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: syntax, design Posted-Date: 21 Feb 2023 00:51:17 EST X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Lines: 25 Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:3393 On Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:09:18 +0000, Roger L Costello wrote: >Hello Compiler Experts! > >Scenario: you have a language that has a BNF. You write a statement in >the language. It is a relatively simple, basic statement. The >statement conforms to the BNF. To show its conformance, you write the >derivation of the statement. Surprisingly, deriving the statement >takes many, many rules. Does that signify that the language's syntax >is too complex? > >/Roger Not necessarily. What makes a language complicated (not "complex") is ambiguity, not the number of grammar rules needed to recognize some particular expression. If you are restricted to BNF ... i.e. your tool does not allow specifying precedence ... then recognizing even relatively simple arithmetic expressions can (perhaps recursively) involve several rules. George