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Re: [ddlm-group] THREAD 3: The alphabet of non-delimited strings.

I am for wider discussion so long as we converge on something. But I
re-iterate whatever we do we need to remediate existing cifs anyway.

The changes are drastic on paper only. There aren't that many existing cifs
that violate the restrictions I am suggesting. However in order to allow for
truly recursive data structures, some restrictions need to be put in place,
otherwise scanners will have to be built according to a large number of
exceptions rather than any rules.

Having supported Herb suggestion I will also state that I would prefer some
discussion on this list BEFORE it goes out to the wider community. James and
I have thought these issues out over 2 weeks together, so we have fairly
deep reasoning behind our proposals. We would like discussion here to draw
out those reasons so we are all on the same page.


On 18/09/09 2:45 PM, "Herbert J. Bernstein" <yaya@bernstein-plus-sons.com>
wrote:

> This would seem to create a serious divergence between valid DDLm CIFs and
> valid DDL1 and DDL2 CIFs.  I would suggest putting this specific proposal
> out to the wider community for comments.  Up until now we had been trying
> to assure people that the change to DDLm would not invalidate existing
> CIFS.  I for one would hope we could do something less drastic.
>    -- Herbert
> 
> =====================================================
>   Herbert J. Bernstein, Professor of Computer Science
>     Dowling College, Kramer Science Center, KSC 121
>          Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY, 11769
> 
>                   +1-631-244-3035
>                   yaya@dowling.edu
> =====================================================
> 
> On Fri, 18 Sep 2009, Nick Spadaccini wrote:
> 
>> As I have written before, non-delimited string (non-DS) that are not of the
>> Number or Measured types cause problems. Everything you need to include in a
>> string can be handled by the delimited string types. With the introduction
>> of compound data structures, restrictions have to be imposed on the allowed
>> alphabet of non-delimited strings so the scanner is not "fooled".
>> 
>> If you HAVE to use non-delimited strings then the alphabet is restricted to,
>> 
>> non-DS = [A_Za-z0-9./-()+?][A_Za-z0-9_./-()+?]*
>> 
>> (Allowing for / is in deference to James, I don't see a great need for it.)
>> 
>> The square brackets [] are part of the regexp and not allowed characters.
>> This will cover all numerics including Measured, and decline the first
>> character as _. None of the token delimiters are included in the alphabet.
>> Note also the classic example of symop is x,y+1/2,z IS NOT allowed, though a
>> quick scan of the IUCr cif archive shows many submissions already quite
>> sensibly use "x,y+1/2,z".
>> 
>> One level of simplification will be in the definition of datanames (DN). We
>> could simply define a data name as
>> 
>> DN = _{non-DS}
>> 
>> All CIF data names in the new DDLm dictionaries are consistent with this
>> restriction. A small amount of remediation (which has to be undertaken
>> anyway) will need to be done for existing domain dictionaries written in
>> either DDL1 or DDL2.
>> 
>> A further simplification is that one can write the scanner to look for token
>> terminating characters, rather than DEMANDING it be followed or preceded by
>> a whitespace.
>> 
>> 
>> cheers
>> 
>> Nick
>> 
>> --------------------------------
>> Associate Professor N. Spadaccini, PhD
>> School of Computer Science & Software Engineering
>> 
>> The University of Western Australia    t: +61 (0)8 6488 3452
>> 35 Stirling Highway                    f: +61 (0)8 6488 1089
>> CRAWLEY, Perth,  WA  6009 AUSTRALIA   w3: www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~nick
>> MBDP  M002
>> 
>> CRICOS Provider Code: 00126G
>> 
>> e: Nick.Spadaccini@uwa.edu.au
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
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cheers

Nick

--------------------------------
Associate Professor N. Spadaccini, PhD
School of Computer Science & Software Engineering

The University of Western Australia    t: +61 (0)8 6488 3452
35 Stirling Highway                    f: +61 (0)8 6488 1089
CRAWLEY, Perth,  WA  6009 AUSTRALIA   w3: www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~nick
MBDP  M002

CRICOS Provider Code: 00126G

e: Nick.Spadaccini@uwa.edu.au





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