Re: deterministic content model?

[Marcus Carr <mrc@allette.com.au>]

Gary Stephenson wrote:

> Is the following content model determinisic?
>
> (a, (b|c)+, (a|b)?, (a|c)* )?

No, it isn't.

> The recent posts concerning the Conformance Test suite results imply that it
> _is_ deterministic (see test ibm47v01)

Really? I missed some of that thread, but it seems odd that could ever be
considered deterministic. A cut down version illustrating the problem is:

(b, a?, a*)

While it can be made deterministic, it's hard to mistake it in that form.

> but in my understanding, when matching
> the following sequence
>
> a,b,a
>
> the second 'a' could be matched by either the ' (a|b)? ' or the ' (a|c)* '
> terms.  Does this not mean that the model is non-deterministic?

Absolutely.


--
Regards,

Marcus Carr                      email:  mrc@allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
Allette Systems (Australia)      www:    http://www.allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
       - Einstein