UoY-RoboStar / robocert-textual

Textual plugin and CSP generator for RoboCert
Eclipse Public License 2.0
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Overhaul side-information in textual notation #74

Closed MattWindsor91 closed 2 years ago

MattWindsor91 commented 2 years ago

The textual notation is a bit inconsistent as to how to encode modalities, inflections, and side information. Usually this is done by separating the main material from the side material using a :, but this falls apart with things like loop headers (which are not always separated), message sets and assertions (which use : for something else), target instantiations, and so on.

This issue proposes that:

The idea here is that the syntax should really follow normal English conventions, where we might expect a term and its definition to be separated by ':' and side information to be given in parentheses.

This is part of a general concern I have with respect to making sure that the textual notation is understandable and self-consistent.

MattWindsor91 commented 2 years ago

Also, reminder to myself to check what MSC does here. I know it has a textual notation but haven't dug deep into it.

MattWindsor91 commented 2 years ago

This change would eliminate the weird rule about being able to specify loop forever, loop: forever, and loop L: forever, but not loop L forever.