Backus-Naur Form Metasyntax

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_Form
- In computer science, Backus–Naur Form (BNF) is a metasyntax used to express context-free grammars: that is, a formal way to describe formal languages. John Backus and Peter Naur developed a context free grammar to define the syntax of a programming language by using two sets of rules: i.e., lexical rules and syntactic rules.
- BNF is widely used as a notation for the grammars of computer programming languages, instruction sets and communication protocols, as well as a notation for representing parts of natural language grammars. Many textbooks for programming language theory and/or semantics document the programming language in BNF.
- There are many extensions and variants of BNF, including Extended and Augmented Backus–Naur Forms (EBNF and ABNF).

(Knuth, 1964) ⇒ Donald E. Knuth. (1964). “Backus Normal Form vs. Backus Naur Form.” In: Communications of the ACM 7 (12): 735–736. doi:10.1145/355588.365140.