< language > Any variation on the basic Backus-Naur Form (BNF) meta-syntax notation with (some of) the following additional constructs: square bracket s "[..]" surrounding optional items, suffix "*" for Kleene closure (a sequence of zero or more of an item), suffix "+" for one or more of an item, curly bracket s enclosing a list of alternatives, and super/subscripts indicating between n and m occurrences.
All these constructs can be expressed in plain BNF using extra production s and have been added for readability and succinctness.
(1995-04-28)