Hi all. I've been thinking about stringification, forms, and things
like that.
As exegesis 7 points out, sprintf, pack, and the forms language all
essentially take data and specifies how to turn it into a "string" (I'm using
"string" loosely here). Likewise with .perl -- it takes some data, and turns
it into a string formatted in a particular way.
Perl 6 has a general language (grammars) for taking some input and a
grammar, and separating the data from the formatting, as it were.
What's made Perl 6 so much more powerful in this area is the grouping
of regexen into grammars.
I'm wondering if we can't come up with a language that does for output
formatting what grammars do for input formatting.
For example, say we could create something called an
outputgrammar. We could do something like this:
grammar XMLIn {...}
outputgrammar XMLout {...}
My thought is that you would then be able to read an XML document
using the XMLin grammar, do a transform or two, and then rewrite it almost
identically (except the changes) with the outputgrammar.
Ideally, it'd be possible to specify one grammar that would act both
for parsing output and formatting input. This may not be possible, but I like
the idea.
It may already be possible to mock up some of these things (a hash
array of sprintf formats?), but I'd be interested in seeing some discussion on
what's possible.
Of course, if this has already been discussed, I'd love to read about
it -- please send links.
:)
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| Name: Tim Nelson | Because the Creator is,|
| E-mail: wayl...@wayland.id.au| I am |
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