World: r3wp

My goal is to create the dialect in a way that it's easy to use for 
non-techies. Yes, it's hard but hey, otherwise it would be no challange.

Robert: you don't need to have any knowledge of PARSE to design a 
dialect. The only thing you need is to know how the dialect should 
look and work.

e.g. I am not implementing all my dialects using PARSE

Robert: Why not settings the words to none! just when you clear the 
block :

strings: copy [] integers: copy []

rule: ['keyword (clear strings clear integers   size: maxlength: 
caption: default: none  ) some [set p integer! (append integers p) 
| set p string! (append strings p)] (size: integers/1 maxlength integers/2 
caption: strings/1 default: strings/2)]

then, none! is default unless you specify Size and, maybe, Maxlength.

Ups, it's even not needed : if Integers is empty, then "size: empty/1 
--> none!"

So, mix the both : the 'maxlength and 'default keywords :

rule: [
	'keyword (clear strings clear integers)

 any [set p integer! (append integers p) | set p string! (append strings 
 p)]

 (size: integers/1 maxlength: integers/2 caption: strings/1 default: 
 strings/2)

 any ['maxlength set p integer! (maxlength: p) | 'default set p string! 
 (default: p)]
]

tests: [
	[]
	[keyword]
	[keyword 10 20 "Blue" "Orange"]
	[keyword 10 "Blue"]
	[keyword 10 20]
	[keyword "Blue" "Orange"]
	[keyword 10 "Blue" 20 "Orange"]
	[keyword "Blue" 10 20 "Orange"]
	[keyword "Blue" "Orange" 10 20]
	[keyword "Blue" maxlength 20]
	[keyword 10 default "Orange"]
	[keyword maxlength 20]
	[keyword default "Orange"]
	[keyword maxlength 20 default "Orange"]
	[keyword default "Orange" maxlength 20]
]

strings: copy [] integers: copy []
size: maxlength: caption: default: -1

foreach t tests [
	parse t rule
	print [mold t "==>" size maxlength caption default]
]

Dide, yes I have found the side effect of empty/1 == none! as well.

About mixing: I'm thinking of something like this:

(keyword: none)
any [

 opt ['maxlength (keyword: 'maxlength) | 'default (keyword: 'default)]]
	any [set p integer! (repend integers [keyword p])
	...

I think you get the idea.

I had this problem a couple of weeks ago when trying to write a function 
to repopulate a web page from the posted cgi object.

As said, my goal is to reduce the number of keywords as much as possible 
and make it easy to use.

Are you trying to parse html to see if it is valid or not?

No, I'm doing a dialect to create HTML forms with CGI etc.

I suspect a mixed positonal + keyword approach may be the best.
Positional for for common attrbutes.
Keyword for the more esoteric ones.
Maybe read up on CSS shorthand methods for inspiration.

Yes, right that's what I'm going to do. Thanks for the CSS tipp, 
I take a look at.

I've defined a new format, which is a REBOL version of XML. I already 
have scripts, that can convert between this format and XML. So far, 
I've called the functions "xml2rebol" and "rebol2xml", but maybe 
"rebol" isn't a good name for the new format. I've thought about 
"rebxml" as a name. Any ideas or suggestions? This is a quick explanation 
of the foremat:

tag (optional attributes) string or block

If the string is empty, it's an empty element tag. In XML: <tag/>

If attributes are present, they are one or more pairs of a word and 
a string.
A block can hold strings and new tags.

This XML example:

<person alive="yes"><name>Mr. Smith</name><male/><address><street>Sunnylane</street><number>44</number></address><person>
will look like this in the new format:

[ person alive "yes" [ name "Mr. Smith" male "" address [ street 
"Sunnylane" number "44" ] ]

Other examples:
<tag></tag> = tag [ "" ]
<tag>content</tag> = tag "content"
or tag [ "content" ]
Both are valid.

Correction!
This XML example:

<person alive="yes"><name>Mr. Smith</name><male/><address><street>Sunnylane</street><number>44</number></address></person>

I like this.. 
°Mr. Smith° (main °7°) has the following..
 
	°Class?° °Person°
	°Alive Dead Status° "Alive"
	°Address 1° "44"
	°Address 2° °Sunnylane°

Notice that °Sunnylane° and °Person° are themselves °7°s?  This means 
that more information is available regarding them.. ie:

°Sunnylane: last time paved?° 
or 
°Sunnylane: set last time paved -=24-Oct-2001=-°


Because °Mr. Smith° is a °Person°, we could make a query like.. °Mr. 
Smith: requires food to survive?°  and have the system respond "Yes."

:)

Geomol, you might want to look at my ML dialect which has something 
very similar to what you're doing. ML is my Rebol dialect for writing 
XML.

In ML

In ML
/tag   ->     <tag/>
tag []    ->   <tag> (stuff in block) </tag>

tag/attribute value []    ->   <tag attribute="value"> (stuff in 
block) </tag>

<tag attribute="value"> []   ->   <tag attribute="value"> (stuff 
in block) </tag>

And it's all in one function.

An "Internal dialecting" discussion. Currently REDUCE has got a REDUCE/ONLY 
option to specify, which words are *not* evaluated

I, OTOH, found an "opposite" approach specifying which words *are* 
evaluated very fruitful.

Examples are my BUILD dialect:

build/with [let's see what] build/with [what: [the rise of the (y)]] 
[
        y: 'sun
    ] ; == [let's see the rise of the (sun)]

or my SUBSTITUTE dialect:

Do you have an example where reduce/only works. I only get errors.

tests: substitute [
		generate-test [
			set variable value
			eq variable 1
		] [value] [1 2]
		return "OK"
		label fail
		do discard [print ["test:" mold testing "failed"] halt]
	] [generate-test]

Reduce/only example:

example:
!> reduce/only[green blue][green]
== [green 0.0.255]

>> reduce/only [a b c d] [b c d]
== [1 b c d]

Maybe we need both reduce? AFAIK currently it is to have a reduce 
which allows keywords.

Ah. Interesting. I think I needed this in the past I didn't know 
it existed.

Good idea IMHO. Sadly i managed to crash it in my first try.

I wish build was part of rebol. I find it a lot easier to use than 
compose. Only that slower.

Bill Gates says "We need dialects"
http://microformats.org

(Actually he said "microformats" -- but I can't see any real difference 
in intent)

Hum, not sure it's dialect equivalent. It looks like some "XML samples" 
to replace existing text format (ie iCal => hCalendar)

IMO nothing to do with dialect... AFAICT they are simply structured 
xml definitions...

vCard --> iCard --> hCard  ... plenty of alphabet to go for future 
formats ;-)

just keep "R"  for us... we should patent the letter "R"   ;-)

Well nothing stopping us from doing the same thing. Just do a like 
for like conversion as they did, but do it into rebol format instead 
of xml or xhtml

Visual Studio is getting DSL support, along the lines of what JetBrains 
has done I think. There's a team blogging about it inside MS, so 
I think Bill and Co. *do* think we need them (they're just doing 
it wrong ;-).

initial sync...

.

Requesting Opinions.  Being a crusty old forther, I really really 
miss the immersive nature of the block editor environment.  Coding 
in forth meant never leaving forth.  Editor, debugger, disk drivers 
etc... all forth commands.  No need to ever have the brain exit forth 
mode.  Now that Rebol is my language of the future, I kinda pine 
for the past.  The wonder and beauty of Rebol keeps being interrupted 
by decisions on what to use to edit that last little bit of script. 
 Notepad, Crimson Editor, Rebol editor? A small annoyance but it 
still disrupts the brain from getting to streaming mode.  So now 
to the question.  My first crack at a forth block editor dialect 
failed miserably.  Dialects need to be LOADable for parse to function. 
 Editing source code makes for unloadable situations.  Do I just 
give up on it and learn to live in the third millenium?  Write a 
utility that doesn't use dialects (which seems to unRebol the solution)? 
 I thought I'd ask you guys, just in case there is a light shining 
in front of me that I can't see.  Thanks in advance.