Module 2.8: What is BNF?

A collection of technical terms and concepts related to Backus-Naur Form (BNF) notation as described in the lecture notes.

BNF

An abbreviation for "Backus-Naur Form," a notation used in computer science and formal language theory to describe the syntax of programming languages.

John Backus and Peter Naur

The two individuals who independently developed BNF in the late 1950sand early 1960s

Terminals

The basic symbols or tokens of the language that appear in actual expressions, typically enclosed in quotation marks or angle brackets.

Non-terminals

Placeholders for syntactic categories or abstract components within a language, often enclosed in angle brackets (< and >).

Production rules

A set of rules consisting of a non-terminal on the left-hand side and a sequence of terminals and/or non-terminals on the right-hand side, defining how valid expressions are constructed.

::= or — >

Symbols used in production rules to separate the non-terminal on the left-hand side from the sequence on the right-hand side.

Parsers

Compilers

The specific tools in programming language design and development for which BNF serves as a foundational tool.

Syntax

The formal rules and structure of a language that BNF notation aims to represent in a concise and unambiguous manner.

$$|$$

A symbol used in BNF grammar (as seen in the arithmetic expression example) to denote choice or alternatives between different sequences of symbols.