Symbolmatch

Grammar and syntax engine of Symp

🧩 Purpose

Symbolmatch defines the form of valid input.
It’s a PEG-like parser expressed in S-expressions.
Each grammar is a collection of rule definitions written entirely in symbolic notation.

Where other systems hide parsing inside compilers, Symbolmatch makes it an explicit, inspectable data structure.

📘 Grammar Overview

<start> := (RULES <rule>+)

<rule> := (FLAT <IDENTIFIER> <S-EXPRESSION>)
        | (NORM <IDENTIFIER> <S-EXPRESSION>)
        | (ATOM <IDENTIFIER> <S-EXPRESSION>)

💡 Example

Validate that an expression is a single atom:

(APPLY
  symbolmatch
  (SEXPR
    (RULES
      (FLAT <start> ATOMIC))))

Input:

hello → success
(hello world) → parse error at position 1.

🔍 Notes

• Symbolmatch is the syntax pillar of Symp’s pipeline.
• It can be reused by other frames to define their expected input shape.
• Grammars are first-class values — you can generate them dynamically or load from files.