Precedence Functions
An operator precedence parser usually does not store the precedence table with the relations, which can get rather large. Instead, precedence functions f and g are defined. They map terminal symbols to integers, and so the precedence relations between the symbols are implemented by numerical comparison: f(a) < g(b) must hold if a <• b holds, etc.
Not every table of precedence relations has precedence functions, but in practice for most grammars such functions can be designed.
Read more about this topic: Operator-precedence Grammar
Famous quotes containing the words precedence and/or functions:
“What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist’s presence makes itself felt above that of the model.... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul’s style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)