NAME

ltnsl-query - LT NSL query language

DESCRIPTION

The material below may be out of date: consult LT XML documentation please.

LT NSL queries are patterns on items (SGML/XML elements) to select. A query describes a path from the root of the document to the desired element and is basically a path based with terms separated by / as follows:
<query> := <term> ('/' <term>)*
<term> := <bTerm> '*'?
<bTerm> := <aTerm> ( '|' <aTerm> )*
<aTerm> := <GI> <cond>?
<GI> := <elementName> | '.'
<cond> := '[' <index>|<atests>|<index> <atests>']'
<index> := <number>
<atests> := <atest> (' ' <atest>)*
<atest> := <aname> ( [ '=' | "!=' ] <aval>)?
Aname and aval are as per SGML, except that if the -r flag is given, aval is a regular expression.
<term>s which consist of a number of <bTerm>s separated by '|' match against any element which matches one of the <bTerms>.
A GI of . matches any tag. A condition with an index matches only the index'th sub-element of the enclosing element. Attribute tests are not exhaustive, and will match against both explicitly present and defaulted attribute values, using string equality. Bare anames are satisfied by ANY value, explicit or defaulted. Terms ending with * match any number of links in the chain, including 0.

SEE ALSO

ltxml(1)

AUTHOR

Henry Thompson (ht@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)
David McKelvie (dmck@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)
Language Technology Group, Human Communication Research Centre, Edinburgh University,
2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND
Tel:(44) 131 650-4630
Fax:(44) 131 650-4587 email: dmck@cogsci.ed.ac.uk

Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are always welcome.