add the Python API tutorial to the GF home page

This commit is contained in:
krasimir
2015-07-15 12:12:50 +00:00
parent aa6b6d3155
commit 4810a0b8e5
2 changed files with 435 additions and 1 deletions

433
doc/python-api.html Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,433 @@
<html>
<head>
<style>
.code {background-color:lightgray}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Using the Python binding to the C runtime</h1>
<h4>Krasimir Angelov, July 2015</h4>
<h2>Loading the Grammar</h2>
Before you use the Python binding you need to import the pgf module.
<pre class="code">
>>> import pgf
</pre>
Once you have the module imported, you can use the <tt>dir</tt> and
<tt>help</tt> functions to see what kind of functionality is available.
<tt>dir</tt> takes an object and returns a list of methods available
in the object:
<pre class="code">
>>> dir(pgf)
</pre>
<tt>help</tt> is a little bit more advanced and it tries
to produce more human readable documentation, which more over
contains comments:
<pre class="code">
>>> help(pgf)
</pre>
A grammar is loaded by calling the method readPGF:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr = pgf.readPGF("App12.pgf")
</pre>
From the grammar you can query the set of available languages.
It is accessible through the property <tt>languages</tt> which
is a map from language name to an object of class <tt>pgf.Concr</tt>
which respresents the language.
For example the following will extract the English language:
<pre class="code">
>>> eng = gr.languages["AppEng"]
>>> print eng
&lt;pgf.Concr object at 0x7f7dfa4471d0&gt;
</pre>
<h2>Parsing</h2>
All language specific services are available as methods of the
class <tt>pgf.Concr</tt>. For example to invoke the parser, you
can call:
<pre class="code">
>>> i = eng.parse("this is a small theatre")
</pre>
This gives you an iterator which can enumerates all possible
abstract trees. You can get the next tree by calling next:
<pre class="code">
>>> p,e = i.next()
</pre>
The results are always pairs of probability and tree. The probabilities
are negated logarithmic probabilities and which means that the lowest
number encodes the most probable result. The possible trees are
returned in decreasing probability order (i.e. increasing negated logarithm).
The first tree should have the smallest <tt>p</tt>:
<pre class="code">
>>> print p
35.9166526794
</pre>
and this is the corresponding abstract tree:
<pre class="code">
>>> print e
PhrUtt NoPConj (UttS (UseCl (TTAnt TPres ASimul) PPos (PredVP (DetNP (DetQuant this_Quant NumSg)) (UseComp (CompNP (DetCN (DetQuant IndefArt NumSg) (AdjCN (PositA small_A) (UseN theatre_N)))))))) NoVoc
</pre>
The <tt>parse</tt> method has also the following optional parameters:
<table border=1>
<tr><td>cat</td><td>start category</td></tr>
<tr><td>n</td><td>maximum number of trees</td></tr>
<tr><td>heuristics</td><td>a real number from 0 to 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>callbacks</td><td>a list of category and callback function</td></tr>
</table>
By using these parameters it is possible for instance to change the start category for
the parser or to limit the number of trees returned from the parser. For example
parsing with a different start category can be done as follows:
<pre class="code">
>>> i = eng.parse("a small theatre", cat="NP")
</pre>
<p>The heuristics factor can be used to trade parsing speed for quality.
By default the list of trees is sorted by probability this corresponds
to factor 0.0. When we increase the factor then parsing becomes faster
but at the same time the sorting becomes imprecise. The worst
factor is 1.0. In any case the parser always returns the same set of
trees but in different order. Our experience is that even a factor
of about 0.6-0.8 with the translation grammar, still orders
the most probable tree on top of the list but further down the list
the trees become shuffled.
</p>
<p>
The callbacks is a list of functions that can be used for recognizing
literals. For example we use those for recognizing names and unknown
words in the translator.
</p>
<h2>Linearization</h2>
You can either linearize the result from the parser back to another
language, or you can explicitly construct a tree and then
linearize it in any language. For example, we can create
a new expression like this:
<pre class="code">
>>> e = pgf.readExpr("AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN theatre_N)")
</pre>
and then we can linearize it:
<pre class="code">
>>> print eng.linearize(e)
red theatre
</pre>
This method produces only a single linearization. If you use variants
in the grammar then you might want to see all possible linearizations.
For that purpouse you should use linearizeAll:
<pre class="code">
>>> for s in eng.linearizeAll(e):
print s
red theatre
red theater
</pre>
If, instead, you need an inflection table with all possible forms
then the right method to use is tabularLinearize:
<pre class="code">
>>> eng.tabularLinearize(e):
{'s Sg Nom': 'red theatre', 's Pl Nom': 'red theatres', 's Pl Gen': "red theatres'", 's Sg Gen': "red theatre's"}
</pre>
<p>
Finally, you could also get a linearization which is bracketed into
a list of phrases:
<pre class="code">
>>> [b] = eng.bracketedLinearize(e)
>>> print b
(CN:4 (AP:1 (A:0 red)) (CN:3 (N:2 theatre)))
</pre>
Each bracket is actually an object of type pgf.Bracket. The property
<tt>cat</tt> of the object gives you the name of the category and
the property children gives you a list of nested brackets.
If a phrase is discontinuous then it is represented as more than
one brackets with the same category name. In that case, the index
that you see in the example above will have the same value for all
brackets of the same phrase.
</p>
The linearization works even if there are functions in the tree
that doesn't have linearization definitions. In that case you
will just see the name of the function in the generated string.
It is sometimes helpful to be able to see whether a function
is linearizable or not. This can be done in this way:
<pre class="code">
>>> print eng.hasLinearization("apple_N")
</pre>
<h2>Analysing and Constructing Expressions</h2>
<p>
An already constructed tree can be analyzed and transformed
in the host application. For example you can deconstruct
a tree into a function name and a list of arguments:
<pre class="code">
>>> e.unpack()
('AdjCN', [&lt;pgf.Expr object at 0x7f7df6db78c8&gt;, &lt;pgf.Expr object at 0x7f7df6db7878&gt;])
</pre>
The result from unpack can be different depending on the form of the
tree. If the tree is a function application then you always get
a tuple of function name and a list of arguments. If instead the
tree is just a literal string then the return value is the actual
literal. For example the result from:
<pre class="code">
>>> pgf.readExpr('"literal"').unpack()
'literal'
</pre>
is just the string 'literal'. Situations like this can be detected
in Python by checking the type of the result from <tt>unpack</tt>.
</p>
<p>
For more complex analyses you can use the visitor pattern.
In object oriented languages this is just a clumpsy way to do
what is called pattern matching in most functional languages.
You need to define a class which has one method for each function
in the abstract syntax of the grammar. If the functions is called
<tt>f</tt> then you need a method called <tt>on_f</tt>. The method
will be called each time when the corresponding function is encountered,
and its arguments will be the arguments from the original tree.
If there is no matching method name then the runtime will
to call the method <tt>default</tt>. The following is an example:
<pre class="code">
>>> class ExampleVisitor:
def on_DetCN(self,quant,cn):
print "Found DetCN"
cn.visit(self)
def on_AdjCN(self,adj,cn):
print "Found AdjCN"
cn.visit(self)
def default(self,e):
pass
>>> e2.visit(ExampleVisitor())
Found DetCN
Found AdjCN
</pre>
Here we call the method <tt>visit</tt> from the tree e2 and we give
it, as parameter, an instance of class <tt>ExampleVisitor</tt>.
<tt>ExampleVisitor</tt> has two methods <tt>on_DetCN</tt>
and <tt>on_AdjCN</tt> which are called when the top function of
the current tree is <tt>DetCN</tt> or <tt>AdjCN</tt>
correspondingly. In this example we just print a message and
we call <tt>visit</tt> recursively to go deeper into the tree.
</p>
Constructing new trees is also easy. You can either use
<tt>readExpr</tt> to read trees from strings, or you can
construct new trees from existing pieces. This is possible by
using the constructor for <tt>pgf.Expr</tt>:
<pre class="code">
>>> quant = pgf.readExpr("DetQuant IndefArt NumSg")
>>> e2 = pgf.Expr("DetCN", [quant, e])
>>> print e2
DetCN (DetQuant IndefArt NumSg) (AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN theatre_N))
</pre>
<h2>Embedded GF Grammars</h2>
The GF compiler allows for easy integration of grammars in Haskell
applications. For that purpose the compiler generates Haskell code
that makes the integration of grammars easier. Since Python is a
dynamic language the same can be done at runtime. Once you load
the grammar you can call the method <tt>embed</tt>, which will
dynamically create a Python module with one Python function
for every function in the abstract syntax of the grammar.
After that you can simply import the module:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr.embed("App")
&lt;module 'App' (built-in)&gt;
>>> import App
</pre>
Now creating new trees is just a matter of calling ordinary Python
functions:
<pre class="code">
>>> print App.DetCN(quant,e)
DetCN (DetQuant IndefArt NumSg) (AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN house_N))
</pre>
<h2>Access the Morphological Lexicon</h2>
There are two methods that gives you direct access to the morphological
lexicon. The first makes it possible to dump the full form lexicon.
The following code just iterates over the lexicon and prints each
word form with its possible analyses:
<pre class="code">
for entry in eng.fullFormLexicon():
print entry
</pre>
The second one implements a simple lookup. The argument is a word
form and the result is a list of analyses:
<pre class="code">
print eng.lookupMorpho("letter")
[('letter_1_N', 's Sg Nom', inf), ('letter_2_N', 's Sg Nom', inf)]
</pre>
<h2>Access the Abstract Syntax</h2>
There is a simple API for accessing the abstract syntax. For example,
you can get a list of abstract functions:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr.functions
....
</pre>
or a list of categories:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr.categories
....
</pre>
You can also access all functions with the same result category:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr.functionsByCat("Weekday")
['friday_Weekday', 'monday_Weekday', 'saturday_Weekday', 'sunday_Weekday', 'thursday_Weekday', 'tuesday_Weekday', 'wednesday_Weekday']
</pre>
The full type of a function can be retrieved as:
<pre class="code">
>>> print gr.functionType("DetCN")
Det -> CN -> NP
</pre>
<h2>Type Checking Abstract Trees</h2>
<p>The runtime type checker can do type checking and type inference
for simple types. Dependent types are still not fully implemented
in the current runtime. The inference is done with method <tt>inferExpr</tt>:
<pre class="code">
>>> e,ty = gr.inferExpr(e)
>>> print e
AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN theatre_N)
>>> print ty
CN
</pre>
The result is a potentially updated expression and its type. In this
case we always deal with simple types, which means that the new
expression will be always equal to the original expression. However, this
wouldn't be true when dependent types are added.
</p>
<p>Type checking is also trivial:
<pre class="code">
>>> e = gr.checkExpr(e,pgf.readType("CN"))
>>> print e
AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN theatre_N)
</pre>
In case of type error you will get an exception:
<pre class="code">
>>> e = gr.checkExpr(e,pgf.readType("A"))
pgf.TypeError: The expected type of the expression AdjCN (PositA red_A) (UseN theatre_N) is A but CN is infered
</pre>
</p>
<h2>Partial Grammar Loading</h2>
By default the whole grammar is compiled into a single file
which consists of an abstract syntax together will all concrete
languages. For large grammars with many languages this might be
inconvinient because loading becomes slower and the grammar takes
more memory. For that purpose you could split the grammar into
one file for the abstract syntax and one file for every concrete syntax.
This is done by using the option <tt>-split-pgf</tt> in the compiler:
<pre class="code">
$ gf -make -split-pgf App12.pgf
</pre>
Now you can load the grammar as usual but this time only the
abstract syntax will be loaded. You can still use the <tt>languages</tt>
property to get the list of languages and the corresponding
concrete syntax objects:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr = pgf.readPGF("App.pgf")
>>> eng = gr.languages["AppEng"]
</pre>
However, if you now try to use the concrete syntax then you will
get an exception:
<pre class="code">
>>> gr.languages["AppEng"].lookupMorpho("letter")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
pgf.PGFError: The concrete syntax is not loaded
</pre>
Before using the concrete syntax, you need to explicitly load it:
<pre class="code">
>>> eng.load("AppEng.pgf_c")
>>> print eng.lookupMorpho("letter")
[('letter_1_N', 's Sg Nom', inf), ('letter_2_N', 's Sg Nom', inf)]
</pre>
When you don't need the language anymore then you can simply
unload it:
<pre class="code">
>>> eng.unload()
</pre>
<h2>GraphViz</h2>
GraphViz is used for visualizing abstract syntax trees and parse trees.
In both cases the result is a GraphViz code that can be used for
rendering the trees. See the examples bellow.
<pre class="code">
>>> print gr.graphvizAbstractTree(e)
graph {
n0[label = "AdjCN", style = "solid", shape = "plaintext"]
n1[label = "PositA", style = "solid", shape = "plaintext"]
n2[label = "red_A", style = "solid", shape = "plaintext"]
n1 -- n2 [style = "solid"]
n0 -- n1 [style = "solid"]
n3[label = "UseN", style = "solid", shape = "plaintext"]
n4[label = "theatre_N", style = "solid", shape = "plaintext"]
n3 -- n4 [style = "solid"]
n0 -- n3 [style = "solid"]
}
</pre>
<pre class="code">
>>> print eng.graphvizParseTree(e)
graph {
node[shape=plaintext]
subgraph {rank=same;
n4[label="CN"]
}
subgraph {rank=same;
edge[style=invis]
n1[label="AP"]
n3[label="CN"]
n1 -- n3
}
n4 -- n1
n4 -- n3
subgraph {rank=same;
edge[style=invis]
n0[label="A"]
n2[label="N"]
n0 -- n2
}
n1 -- n0
n3 -- n2
subgraph {rank=same;
edge[style=invis]
n100000[label="red"]
n100001[label="theatre"]
n100000 -- n100001
}
n0 -- n100000
n2 -- n100001
}
</pre>
</body>
</html>