Editing Help:Bop entries (section)

== bop syntax ==

bop files are designed with a similar but not identical ethos to [https://hexdocs.pm/gemtext/Gemtext.html gemini webpages]. Each text file contains a line-oriented footer below an arbitrary body, such that the parser can assume that either two empty lines or a series of hard-rule characters separate the body from the metadata section. Whether the body of the file will be parsed is a matter for the parser to decide. Each line in the metadata section is always parsed into a metadata statement, but a parser may decide to treat the body purely as a preformatted text file.

=== Programmability ===

bop's initial concept allows for both metadata types and body formatting syntax to be <i>programmable</i> through either additional Lisp modules supplied to extend the format or through user-supplied data structures. In practice, no existing parser has successfully implemented this feature, leading most bop files and parsers currently in existence to focus on a core prescriptive set of metadata lines and body formatting patterns which are obeyed with relative consistency yet never officially standardized. On occasion, some bop files may contain experimental body patterns or experimental metadata lines, although for the benefit of real-world parsers it is typical to leave said metadata lines commented out.

in bop's initial concept, arbitrary body formatting patterns were to be defined using particular types of metadata lines, which would link these patterns to some particular pre-defined visual presentation in order for each to be parsed and rendered into any supported format such as RTF, HTML, or TeX. In theory, this means the precise details of any particular bop file's syntax can be almost entirely up to the entry author; an entry could opt to use rules identical to Markdown, identical to HTML tags, or purely according to the author's own arbitrary formatting scheme. In practice, most bop files in existence are likely to use a formatting syntax loosely similar to Markdown but with its linking ability replaced with footnotes pointing to links in the metadata section.

As far as displaying bop files in MediaWiki, the notion of programmability can be partially simulated with specific wiki templates each used to define the appearance of a metadata line — here the "programming" or "extension" occurs inside each new template.

The prospect of programming body formatting is more difficult, although possible. MediaWiki supports parser functions, enabling a particular block of bop text with a particular known set of formatting to be parsed through a limited parser implemented inside MediaWiki.