3.4 Mathematical Markup

The range of mathematics represented in the DLMF, primarily algebra and calculus, is considerably narrower than the field of mathematics as a whole. Thus the range of notations -- and ambiguities -- we must contend with is considerably smaller. Nevertheless, there are still problems.

The intention is to adapt an infix parser to the task of transforming the L^ATEX markup into semantic form. Since the goal is to only minimally extend the markup, the parser must accept implicit operations; in our application this will generally be implicit multiplication, but we anticipate the need for a type inference engine to resolve ambiguities. To further reduce the amount of guesswork such a parser must carry out, we have developed several sets of markup described in the following sections.