An update on the Mythryl XML SAX parser project: the validation step of elements is going quite well. The specification called for following the regular expression spelled out by the DTD for each element (see production 39). So I whipped out my recursive descent parser and built a nearly trivial function to translate the DTD specification for each element (beginning at production 46) into a parser structure usable by the recursive descent parser. Then I had to put together a List of the content of each element (nothing more than a summary, released as soon as it’s used) of the XML file and added the validation step in the etag production (the aforementioned production 39).
This all turned out to be quite simple and takes advantage of a mechanism in place and proven. The only question will be how to handle error reporting in a usable manner.
Previous work continues to support the direct use of the BNF as a start for getting the syntax handling rock solid with near-zero effort, allowing concentration on semantics.
In other matters, as I mentioned on Facebook, Cynbe has been diagnosed with lung cancer, as he announced here, and is looking for assistance with the Mythryl project. Please let me know if you’re interested and happen to understand that functional programming is not a reference to C, C++, or Pascal.
