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5 Input file format

This chapter describes the GenoM3 Input File Format (dotgen) semantics and gives the syntax for dotgen grammatical constructs. dotgen is the language used to formally describe a GenoM component in terms of services and data types it provides. A description written in dotgen completely defines the interface and the internals of a component.

A description of the dotgen preprocessing is presented in Preprocessing. The complete grammar is presented in Grammar reference. Associated semantics is described in the rest of this chapter either in place or through references to other sub sections of this chapter.

A source file containing a dotgen component specification must have a .gen extension. The description of the dotgen grammar uses a syntax notation that is similar to EBNF (Extended Backus-Naur Format). The following table lists the symbols used in this format and their meaning.

Symbol

Meaning
::=

Definition.
|

Alternation.
text

Nonterminals.
"text"

Terminals.
( ... )

Grouping.
{ ... }

Repetition: may occur zero or any number of times.
[ ... ]

Option: may occur zero or one time.

Table 5.1: dotgen EBNF symbols