BNF Grammars 描述编程语言的语法

2019独角兽企业重金招聘Python工程师标准>>>

• 几个基础概念

  1. A sentence 句子 is a string of characters over some alphabet
  2. A language is a set of sentences 语言是一些句子的集合
  3. A lexeme is the lowest level syntactic unit of a language (e.g., *, sum, begin) 最小语法单位
  4. A token is a category of lexemes (e.g., identifier) 标识符

• BNF 基础

  • In BNF, abstractions 抽象 are used to represent classes of syntactic structures--they act like
    syntactic variables 变量 (also called nonterminal symbols, or just nonterminals)
  • Terminals are lexemes or tokens
  • A rule 规则 has a left-hand side (LHS) 左侧, which is a nonterminal, and a right-hand side (RHS) 右侧, which is a string of terminals and/or nonterminals 左侧是nonterminal，右侧是terminals序列或者nonterminal

• Nonterminals are often enclosed in angle brackets 角括号 Examples of BNF rules:
  <ident_list> -> identifier | identifier, <ident_list>
  <if_stmt> -> if <logic_expr> then <stmt>

• Grammar: a finite non-empty set of rules 有限的非空规则集合

• A start symbol is a special element of the nonterminals of a grammar 起始标志是特殊nonterminal

• BNF规则

  • An abstraction (or nonterminal symbol) can have more than one RHS 右侧可以有多种规则
    e.g. <stmt> -> <single_stmt> | begin <stmt_list> end （一个语句可以是单个句子或者一些句子）
  • Syntactic lists are described using recursion 如何描述一个list
    <ident_list> -> ident| ident, <ident_list>
  • A derivation is a repeated application of rules, starting with the start symbol and ending with a
    sentence (all terminal symbols) 一次衍生指不断运用规则直到最后只剩一个全是terminal的语句
    e.g. 假设一个语言的语法如下
    
    那么以下就是一种衍生
    

• Derivations 具体了解衍生

  • Every string of symbols in a derivation is a sentential form 衍生中每一行都是语句的形式
  • sentence is a sentential form that has only terminal symbols 语句只包含terminal
  • leftmost derivation is one in which the leftmost nonterminal in each sentential form is the one
    that is expanded 左侧衍生是被展开的对象总是以左侧优先（比如上述的例子），以此类推可知右侧
    衍生的定义
  • derivation may be neither leftmost nor rightmost 衍生可以既不是左侧衍生也不是右侧衍生（顺序
    不重要）

• Parse Tree 解析树

  • A hierarchical representation of a derivation 用来表现衍生的一种树状表达方式
    e.g.
    

• Ambiguity in Grammars 语法的含糊性

  • A grammar is ambiguous if and only if it generates a sentential form that has two or more distinct
    parse trees 如果一个语句可以用两个不同parse tree解析树表示，则说明这个语言的语法是含糊的
    e.g. 下面的语法是含糊的
    

  • 如何避免语法的含糊性？
    答： 不让两个以上的同名 nonterminals 出现在一个语句的右侧一个表达式里，比如上述的<expr>
    现在将上面的语法稍微修改，就是非含糊的
    

• EBNF 是BNF的一个扩展版本，增加了一些更便利的语法（如 可选，重复等） 有兴趣可以参考
  Wikipedia EBNF

转载于:https://my.oschina.net/Bruce370/blog/889420