+ Abstract syntax now is converted directly from the Grammar and not via PGF,
so you can use `gf -batch -no-pmcfg -f canonical_gf ...`, to export to
canonical_gf while skipping PMCFG and PGF file generation completely.
+ Flags that are normally copied to PGF files are now included in the
caninical_gf output as well (in particular the startcat flag).
This output format converts a GF grammar to a "canonical" GF grammar. A
canonical GF grammar consists of
- one self-contained module for the abstract syntax
- one self-contained module per concrete syntax
The concrete syntax modules contain param, lincat and lin definitions,
everything else has been eliminated by the partial evaluator, including
references to resource library modules and functors. Record types
and tables are retained.
The -output-format canonical_gf option writes canonical GF grammars to a
subdirectory "canonical/". The canonical GF grammars are written as
normal GF ".gf" source files, which can be compiled with GF in the normal way.
The translation to canonical form goes via an AST for canonical GF grammars,
defined in GF.Grammar.Canonical. This is a simple, self-contained format that
doesn't cover everyting in GF (e.g. omitting dependent types and HOAS), but it
is complete enough to translate the Foods and Phrasebook grammars found in
gf-contrib. The AST is based on the GF grammar "GFCanonical" presented here:
https://github.com/GrammaticalFramework/gf-core/issues/30#issuecomment-453556553
The translation of concrete syntax to canonical form is based on the
previously existing translation of concrete syntax to Haskell, implemented
in module GF.Compile.ConcreteToHaskell. This module could now be reimplemented
and simplified significantly by going via the canonical format. Perhaps exports
to other output formats could benefit by going via the canonical format too.
There is also the possibility of completing the GFCanonical grammar
mentioned above and using GF itself to convert canonical GF grammars to
other formats...
PGF exports the public, stable API.
PGF.Internal exports additional things needed in the GF compiler & shell,
including the nonstardard version of Data.Binary.
+ References to modules under src/compiler have been eliminated from the PGF
library (under src/runtime/haskell). Only two functions had to be moved (from
GF.Data.Utilities to PGF.Utilities) to make this possible, other apparent
dependencies turned out to be vacuous.
+ In gf.cabal, the GF executable no longer directly depends on the PGF library
source directory, but only on the exposed library modules. This means that
there is less duplication in gf.cabal and that the 30 modules in the
PGF library will no longer be compiled twice while building GF.
To make this possible, additional PGF library modules have been exposed, even
though they should probably be considered for internal use only. They could
be collected in a PGF.Internal module, or marked as "unstable", to make
this explicit.
+ Also, by using the -fwarn-unused-imports flag, ~220 redundant imports were
found and removed, reducing the total number of imports by ~15%.