🚀 go-pugleaf

drmacro@ralvm13.VNET.IBM.COM writes:
(Stuff deleted)

: >So... Are there any SGML programming toolkits available which allow
: >for this sort of thing?  Is the ARCSGML/JClark suitable in this way?
: >(I'm on a small budget)
: 
: Someone has provided a Rexx interface to ARCSGML for use with
: Personal Rexx under MS-DOS.  With this, you could fairly easily
: write "query" applications.  The basic idea is
: to first define the data structures you need to hold the data
: you want, just as you would for any other data processing
: application.  You then process the document, grabbing data
: off of the relevant elements as they go by and putting it into your data
: structures.  The rest you just let flow through and ignore.

In the distribution of sgmls 1.0, there is a Perl skeleton script that 
"parses" the output of sgmls. You just have to insert the code you want 
into this skeleton script to write an application.

(more sutff deleted)

: <digression>
: 
: The examples above, and most SGML applications in existence today,
: process SGML documents sequentially from start to finish.  However,
: SGML does not require sequential processing, and it can make just
: as much sense to define applications that work with SGML documents
: wholistically as a tree, rather than sequentially, at
: least in the abstract.  In this processing model, access is
: via queries, rather than sequential access by waiting for the
: element you want to flow by.  Some SGML-based online presentation
: systems, such as EBT's Dynatext, present this sort of view of
: documents, providing query-based direct access to elements and
: and data, which makes sense in a dynamic, direct access application
: like online presentation.

I think this is a very good point, and I believe that the next generation SGML
parsers have to move away from the sequential processing model. Some probably
have, such as SGML parsers for SGML editors.  In any HyTime application, 
there will be communications between the application, HyTime engine, and 
the SGML parsers. This communication will in most cases be non-sequential.
Hence, I think an SGML parser using the processing model that Eliot described
will be much more powerful.

(even more stuff deleted)

: Eliot Kimber                      Internet:  drmacro@ralvm13.vnet.ibm.com
: Dept E14/B500                     IBMMAIL:   USIB2DK9@IBMMAIL
: Network Programs Information Development     Phone: 1-919-543-7091
: IBM Corporation
: Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

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   Bernd Nordhausen (bernd@iss.nus.sg)
   Institute of Systems Science                           Ph: +65 772-6240 
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