Re: [xsl] library for parsing RTF

[Andriy Gerasika <andriy.gerasika@xxxxxxxxx>]

> This seems about as useful as a regex C compiler, that compiles
>
>     main() { printf ("Hello world!\n"); }
>
> and _nothing_ else.

C is procedural language, RTF is markup language. I am pointing that BNF 
is too heavy for markup languages, such as RTF, MIF, CSS, JSON -- 
parsing of that can be relatively easy performed w/ XSLT and regexps. At 
least I find it more difficult to deal w/ YACC compared to XSLT and regexps.

For example, I have created simple JSON to XML parser in XSLT using 
regular expressions:
http://www.gerixsoft.com/sites/gerixsoft.com/files/json2xml.zip

IMHO it is more simple compared to parser on top of BNF

> Just because you can make an regex for _one instanace_ of a grammer
> does not mean that you can (easily) use regexs to parse a generic
> format.  RTF is generic - there are MANY valid ways to say similiar
> things in RTF.

This is semantics, not syntax.

General RTF syntax of curly braces and control tags prefixed w/ "\" is 
always the same for all vendors. The fact that Apple uses its own RTF 
control tags and Microsoft is using its own RTF control tags, does not 
change the RTF {} and \ syntax.

RTF is very similar to HTML and CSS -- syntax is always the same for all 
vendors, elements and semantics behind elements may be different. But it 
is not a question of parser, and I doubt BNF parser will handle the 
semantics.