Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text?

From	James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.php
Subject	Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text?
Date	2016-02-21 08:37 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<nabsrm$f7r$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <na4oki$igp$1@jstuckle.eternal-september.org> <naacdf$s6p$1@dont-email.me> <8760xj2lhx.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <naahtk$i3u$1@dont-email.me> <87ziuv103n.fsf@bsb.me.uk>

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On 20/02/2016 22:35, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> writes:

...

>> Here's another attempt to make it look a bit better. This may not be
>> any more successful....
>>
>> (@tagname, parameter, parameter)text(@/tagname)
>>
>> Maybe that's slightly easier on the eye...?
>
> It's not about the eye (for me) but that it's not very far from, say:
>
> <tagname p="parameter,parameter">text</tagname>
>
> and there are lots of existing tool to help write XML, validate and
> process XML.  (I'm not sure what the parameters are, but it might even
> be better to be able to name them: <tagname fill="left" pad="0">.
>
> As I've said, I'm not much of a fan, but unless the syntax is very much
> simpler there is some value in leveraging the XML ecosystem.  (Did I
> really say that?)

Sorry, Ben, I didn't mean to ignore part of your previous post but I am 
afraid I did at least subconsciously dismiss the XML-type idea. To try 
to explain why, ISTM that: XML is too heavy for this, is hard for a 
human to edit, and is hard to read. I don't want to have to use tools 
(other than a text editor) to work with the marked-up text. Nor do I 
want to use pre-existing tools to parse it. In fact, I think it would be 
harder for me to restrict an existing XML parser than it would be to 
write a parser from scratch, at least for the relatively simple app I 
have in mind.

If I were to try to parse the example you give myself, I would have to 
distinguish between <tagname and < used in other contexts. For this, at 
least, angle brackets are too widely used. That's why I used the @ sign 
or the ~ or the pair (@ in the examples I gave. (And there was a way to 
generate the meta character(s) if needed.)

As I see it, the parsing of this should be simple. However the tags are 
recognised, structurally I would need only a stack of contexts. As an 
opening tag is encountered it would be pushed as a new context. As a 
closing tag is encountered it would be checked against the current 
context and then the stack will be popped. When the parse encounters a 
tag which is self contained, it will not change the context so the stack 
stays unchanged.

Other than that, pretty much all I have to do is translate input tags to 
HTML ones and do a bit of other processing which is specific to the tag.

That parse approach seems to be simple. It will not have to do any error 
recovery. If a closing tag does not match the context (i.e. does not 
match the current opening tag) then it is an error and I can stop 
parsing. If the parse gets to the end of the file and there is something 
on the stack then it is also an error. That's about it.

At least that's what I have in mind. I may have missed something important.

James

Thread

Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-18 12:47 +0000
  Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2016-02-18 15:52 +0100
    Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-20 18:28 +0000
  Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-18 14:56 +0000
    Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-18 22:14 +0100
      Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-18 21:45 +0000
        Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-18 23:09 +0100
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-19 01:15 +0000
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-19 02:45 +0100
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-19 12:03 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2016-02-19 12:17 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2016-02-19 14:18 +0100
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-19 14:02 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-20 20:31 +0100
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-21 01:39 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-21 11:33 +0100
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-21 12:53 +0000
    Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-20 18:29 +0000
      Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-20 20:32 +0100
  Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-18 10:43 -0500
    Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-20 18:51 +0000
      Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-20 20:08 +0000
        Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-20 21:22 +0100
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-20 23:40 +0000
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-21 11:39 +0100
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-21 13:09 +0000
        Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-20 20:24 +0000
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-20 22:35 +0000
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 08:37 +0000
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-21 10:55 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 13:25 +0000
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-20 17:50 -0500
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 08:49 +0000
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-21 10:05 -0500
      Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-20 17:45 -0500
        Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 09:01 +0000
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-21 11:46 +0100
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 12:36 +0000
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-21 14:39 +0100
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 13:40 +0000
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-21 14:46 +0100
                Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 14:57 +0000
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-21 10:10 -0500
            Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 17:50 +0000
              Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-02-21 14:08 -0500
      Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2016-02-21 18:35 +0100
        Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-21 17:55 +0000
          Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2016-02-22 16:38 +0100
  Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-18 22:06 +0100
  Re: Any recommendations on using PHP to parse marked-up text? Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-02-27 15:58 +1300

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