BNF Grammar
ConceptIn the context of Sail, the term BNF Grammar refers to the formal Backus-Naur Form grammar that defines the concrete syntactic structure of the Sail instruction-set semantics specification language. It enumerates productions for identifiers, operators, types, kinds, quantifiers, effects, patterns, expressions, blocks, definitions, and declarations such as type, struct, enum, union, bitfield, function, mapping, register, instantiation, overload, scattered, val, let, and termination measure forms.
First seen 8/6/2026
Last seen 8/6/2026
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BNF Grammar
In the Sail language documentation, the term BNF Grammar designates the formal Backus-Naur Form grammar that specifies the concrete surface syntax of Sail. The grammar is presented as a sequence of productions (::=) covering lexical rules, type-level constructs, expression-level constructs, patterns, and the top-level definitions that constitute a Sail specification.
Lexical and Identifier Productions
NEIGHBORHOOD
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23 connectionsSail ISA Specification Language is defined by a BNF grammar covering all its syntactic constructs.
The BNF grammar includes function definition productions.
The BNF grammar of Sail includes type quantifiers as a production rule.
The BNF grammar of Sail includes kind annotations as a production rule.
The BNF grammar includes pattern matching productions.
The BNF grammar includes the expression language productions.
The BNF grammar includes mapping definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes struct type definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes enum type definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes union type definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes bitfield type definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes register definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes overload definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes scattered definition productions.
The BNF grammar includes termination measure productions.
The BNF grammar includes let binding productions.
The BNF grammar includes attribute annotation productions.
The BNF grammar includes value specification productions.
The BNF grammar includes extern binding productions.
The BNF grammar includes effect set productions as part of the type scheme grammar.
The BNF grammar includes bitvector literal productions.
The BNF grammar includes vector expression and update productions.
The BNF grammar of Sail includes type variables as a production rule.
LINKED ENTITIES
23 linksSail ISA Specification Language IMPLEMENTS Extracted graph relationship
Type Variable PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Type Quantifier PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Kind Annotation PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Pattern Matching PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Expression Language PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Function Definition PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Mapping Definition PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Struct Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Enum Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Union Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Bitfield Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Register Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Overload Definition PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Scattered Definition PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Termination Measure PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Let Binding PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Attribute Annotation PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Value Specification PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Extern Binding PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Effect System PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Bitvector Literal PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
Vector Type PART_OF Extracted graph relationship
CITATIONS
6 sources6 citations — click to expand
[1] The BNF Grammar is the formal Backus-Naur Form grammar presented in the Sail documentation that defines the surface syntax of the Sail language, including identifiers, operators, types, kinds, quantifiers, patterns, expressions, blocks, and definitions. The Sail instruction-set semantics specification language
[2] The <def_aux> and <def> productions enumerate the top-level definition forms accepted by Sail, including function, mapping, type, struct, enum, union, bitfield, let, register, val, instantiation, overload, scattered, default, constraint, line directive, and termination_measure declarations. The Sail instruction-set semantics specification language
[3] The <typ> and <kind> productions introduce dependent type-level constructs such as if-then-else types, type quantifiers, and the kinds Int, Type, Order, Bool. The Sail instruction-set semantics specification language
[4] The <exp> and <atomic_exp> productions define the Sail expression language, including function application, projection, type ascription, references, sizeof, constraint, struct literals, vector literals and updates, list and vector comprehensions, blocks, let, var, return, throw, if, match, try, foreach, repeat and while loops with optional termination measures. The Sail instruction-set semantics specification language
[5] BNF grammars are also used to formalize the surface syntax of other languages, such as the BSL (boldsea Semantic Language) executable-ontology language. Executable Ontologies: Synthesizing Event Semantics with Dataflow Architecture
[6] Supplying a BNF grammar as part of the prompt context for large language models substantially improves syntactic and structural validity when generating code in domain-specific languages. Text2DSL: LLM-Based Code Generation for Domain-Specific Languages