Analyzing the Legacy Non-XML Grammars
As I noted when developing the CSV to XML utility, as complicated as XML-based grammars can be, the grammars of other formats aren't necessarily dumb and simple. We can get into trouble and ask for processing problems if we don't analyze grammars correctly and process them with the appropriate algorithms. While I'm not going to go heavily into language analysis and parsing algorithms, I am going to borrow a few techniques from compiler construction and the formal study of languages. If you've studied computer science you'll probably already be familiar with most of these concepts. However, if you haven't or if it has been a few years, this discussion will help build a foundation.
Let's start by reviewing ...
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