GF 3.0
Krasimir Angelov, Björn Bringert, and Aarne Ranta
GF Version 3.0 is a major revision of GF. The source language is a superset of the
language in 2.9, which means backward compatibility. But the target languages, the
compiler implementation, and the functionalities (e.g. the shell) have undergone
radical changes.
The release of GF 3.0 is projected for 27 June. As usual, the developing sources
are available all the time via Darcs.
New features
Here is a summary of the main novelties visible to the user:
- Size: the source code and the executable binary size have gone
down to about the half of 2.9.
- Portability: the new back end format PGF (Portable Grammar Format) is
much simpler than the old GFC format, and therefore easier to port to new
platforms.
- Multilingual web page support: as an example of portability, GF 3.0 provides a
compiler from PGF to JavaScript. There are also JavaScript libraries for creating
translators and syntax editors as client-side web applications.
- Incremental parsing: there is a possibility of word completion when
input strings are sent to the parser.
- Application programmer's interfaces: both source-GF and PGF formats,
the shell, and the compiler are accessible via high-level APIs.
- Resource library version 1.4: more coverage, more languages; some of
the new GF language features are exploited.
Non-supported features
There are some features of GF 2.9 that will not work in the 2.7 June release.
- Java Editor GUI: we now see the JavaScript editor as the main form of
syntax editing.
- Pre-module multi-file grammar format: the grammar format of GF before version 2.0
is still supported, but its include mechanism is not; this means that grammars
consisting of multiple files have to be concatenated before use.
- Probabilistic GF grammars.
- Some output formats: LBNF.
- Some GF shell commands: while the main ones will be supported with their familiar
syntax and options, some old commands have not been included.
Users who want to have these features are welcome to contact us,
and even more welcome to contribute code that restores them!
GF language extensions
Operations for defining patterns.
Inheritance of overload groups.