Markup

Formal lexical definitions are allways written in marked block like this:

This block contains a formal definition

The grammar is losely based on BNF:

• All underlined words are terminals
• All underlined italic parts are optional. Note that either the short or the long version must be used; not something in between
• The vertical bar '|' indicates a choice
• Square brackets '[]' indicate an optional part
• Round parentheses '()' indicate a grouping
• the ellips '...' indicates a repeat of 1 or more times.

foo         ::= bar | fubar [!]...

Some definitions can not be made on a pure syntactic level. These definitions are intertwined with the more standard lexical defintions. Ocean specifies these with:

known-value : an expression which can be computed during compile time;

Italic words are defined elsewhere.

One specific part of Ocean is always there: the standard libary. It doesn't have its own namespace and for all intends and purposes it is part of Ocean proper, but for the fact that you could write it in Ocean itself.

# Comments are like manuals: a product is not finished without them.

Code examples are allways written in marked block like this:

# This block contains a code example
fub!!!
fubar
fubar!!!!

Conventions are described in these boxes: