Re: [abnf-discuss] Core Rules and References for ABNF: draft-seantek-abnf-more-core-rules-07.txt

[Paul Kyzivat <[e-mail]>]

John,

On 9/29/16 2:49 PM, John Levine wrote:
>> In this draft-07 (and draft-06, which had some typos and unclear parts
>> that have since been addressed), the syntax for a "referenced rule" is
>> rulename@RULEREF, where RULEREF can be a document such as
>>
>>   URI@[RFC3986]
>>
>> or a path such as
>>
>> name-part@<https://raw.githubusercontent.com/antlr/grammars-v4/master/abnf/examples/postal.abnf>
>
> Yuck.  I agree it would be nice to make it easier to automatically collect, syntax check,
> and use ABNF, but please don't glop up the text with it.

How is:

	URI = URI@[RFC3986]

more "glopped up" than:

	URI = <URI defined in RFC3986>

(The current most concise, but semantically undefined, way to informally 
say the same thing.)

> The IETF has already decided that the RFC format is going to be XML, so put the cross
> references in the XML where parsing is trivial (given that it's already parsing the
> rest of the XML) and you don't need to invent squidgy text kludges to identify
> the various things you want to include.

If you want to literally include the external ABNF, and have it 
displayed in the document, then you can use an xml include.

But the semantics we are going for here are not that. It is important 
for the *reader* to understand what is being imported, and from where. 
If you stick it in the XML then it isn't visible to the reader.

	Thanks,
	Paul