Subject: Re: BNF for Common Lisp Grammar. From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 13:59:32 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3214130370447363@naggum.net> * clio <wangye1@auburn.edu> | Is there any documents about BNF(EBNF) of the Common Lisp Grammar? No. There is no such thing. Common Lisp has a programmable syntax. E.g., <foo bar> would be two symbols named "<FOO" and "BAR>" in the standard readtable, but a Common Lisp program could easily implement a reader macro that turned it into the equivalent of XML <foo>bar</foo> or whatever that has caused to be represented in memory. If you want to read Common Lisp code or data, it takes you less time to write code in Common Lisp that reads it and spits it out in some dreadfully inferior syntax that you can hack in, say, Perl, than writing the reader in Perl. /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.