ISO 8000-102:2009(E)

6 Terms relating to syntax and semantics

6.1
formal syntax

specification of the valid sentences of a formal language using a formal grammar

NOTE 1 A formal language is computer-interpretable.

NOTE 2 Formal grammars are usually Chomsky context-free grammars.

NOTE 3 Variants of Backus-Naur Form (BNF) such as Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) and Wirth Syntax Notation (WSN) are often used to specify the syntax of computer programming languages and data languages.

EXAMPLE 1 An XML document type definition (DTD) is a formal syntax.

EXAMPLE 2 ISO 10303-21 contains a formal syntax in WSN for ISO 10303 physical files.

6.2
semantic encoding

technique of replacing natural language terms in a message with identifiers that reference data dictionary entries


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