COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	\input macros
C00006 ENDMK
C⊗;
\input macros
\drafttrue
\tolerance=2500

We use an extended Backus Normal Form to describe the syntax of the \OS. The
extension we use is as follows:

$$\lbrack\!\lbrack O\lbrack\!\lbrack$$

An expression of this form will appear whenever a list of elements is
to be spliced into a larger structure. The meta-syntactic unit $O$ represents
a description of the syntax of some number of syntactic units to be spliced.
Suppose $O$ is of the form:

$$\eqalignno{O&=O\sub 1 \vert\ldots O\sub n\cr
  	     O\sub i &= S \vert S{\rm *}&1\leq i\leq n\cr}$$

If a syntactic unit in the expansion of a
$\lbrack\!\lbrack\ldots\lbrack\!\lbrack]]$ expression derived from
syntactic unit whose form is $S{\rm *}$, we say that the syntactic unit
``derives from a starred option.''

The expression $\lbrack\!\lbrack O\lbrack\!\lbrack$ means that a list
of the form

$$(O\sub{i\sub 1}\ldots O\sub{i\sub j})\quad 1\leq j$$

\noindent is spliced into the enclosing expression where if $n \neq m$, 
$1\leq n,m\leq j$,
then either $O\sub{i\sub n}\neq O\sub{i\sub m}$
or $O\sub{i\sub n}$ and $O\sub{i\sub m}$
are derived from starred options.
That is, a subset of the elements $O\sub i$, $1\leq i\leq n$ can appear in
any order, but no element is allowed to be repeated unless its
meta-syntactic unit is of the form $S{\rm *}$.

For example, the expression

$$(\hbox{{\tt foo}} {\lbrack\!\lbrack} \hbox{{\tt A}} 
 \vert \hbox{{\tt B}} \vert \hbox{{\tt C}}{\lbrack\!\lbrack}\hbox{{\tt bar}})$$

\noindent is a description of any of these:

\screen!
(foo bar)
(foo A B bar)
(foo B A bar)
(foo A C B bar)
\endscreen!

\noindent but not of any of these:

\screen!
(foo A A bar)
(foo C B A B C foo)
\endscreen!

\noindent The expression

$$(\hbox{{\tt foo}} {\lbrack\!\lbrack} \hbox{{\tt A}} 
 \vert \hbox{{\tt B}}{\rm *} \vert \hbox{{\tt C}}{\lbrack\!\lbrack}
 \hbox{{\tt bar}})$$

\noindent is a description of any of these:

\screen!
(foo bar)
(foo A B C bar)
(foo A B B B B B C bar)
(foo C B A B B B bar)
\endscreen!

\noindent but not of any of these:

\screen!
(foo B B A A C C bar)
(foo C B C bar)
\endscreen!

\bye