7.1.4 Specifiers

Specifiers are strings beginning with the character ‘#’. They perform additional operations in grammar productions or supply extra meaning to them.

Top-down template grammars support the following specifiers.

#su…

A spur update mode switch. Only the adaptive top-down parser atd-parser supports this specifier.

#d

An operator for deferring an input terminal symbol.

#pt-…

A marker for the end of a PCFG production with terminal symbols at the right-hand side. Only the adaptive bottom-up parser abu-parser supports this specifier.

#pn-…

A marker for the end of a PCFG production with nonterminal symbols at the right-hand side. Only the adaptive bottom-up parser abu-parser supports this specifier.

The rege-markup-cfg tool marks up PCFG productions in a bottom-up template grammar for subsequent conversion to a top-down template grammar by the rege-bottom-up tool.

The specifiers #su… and #d use the context of a sequence or grouping.