====== Tips when using VisCCG ======

Here are some handy tips for making it easier to develop grammars with VisCCG.

===== Options to ccg2xml =====

==== Different prefixes for your generated XML files ====

When you create the XML files from your ''.ccg'' specification, it adds the name of your grammar by default to the files. For example, if you have a file called ''tagalog.ccg'', the following is the default behavior:


<code>
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ls
tagalog.ccg
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ccg2xml tagalog.ccg
ccg2xml: Processing tagalog.ccg
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-lexicon.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-grammar.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-morph.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-rules.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-testbed.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-types.xml
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ls
tagalog-grammar.xml     tagalog-rules.xml       tagalog.ccg
tagalog-lexicon.xml     tagalog-testbed.xml
tagalog-morph.xml       tagalog-types.xml
</code>

You can change the prefix by using the ''-p'' option to ''ccg2xml''. For example, say you want to save various versions of your grammar as you are working on it. You might do this:

<code>
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ccg2xml -p "tagalog-v2-" tagalog.ccg
ccg2xml: Processing tagalog.ccg
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-lexicon.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-grammar.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-morph.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-rules.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-testbed.xml
Outputting XML file: ./tagalog-v2-types.xml
</code>

This will be handy for creating HTML visualization with the ''ccg-grammardoc'' command, discussed below.

===== Generating HTML documentation from your grammar =====

There is a handy utility for visualizing your OpenCCG grammars in HTML called ''ccg-grammardoc'' (created by Scott Martin at Ohio State University). It assumes that the files you want to display have no prefixes, so they should be named ''grammar.xml'' rather than ''tagalog-grammar.xml'', for example. We can use the ''-p'' option to produce such files, as such:

<code>
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ccg2xml -p "" tagalog.ccg
ccg2xml: Processing tagalog.ccg
Outputting XML file: ./lexicon.xml
Outputting XML file: ./grammar.xml
Outputting XML file: ./morph.xml
Outputting XML file: ./rules.xml
Outputting XML file: ./testbed.xml
Outputting XML file: ./types.xml
</code>

Now you are ready to run ''ccg-grammardoc'':

<code>
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ccg-grammardoc -d tagalog_page
[grammardoc] Creating directory /Users/jbaldrid/devel/grammars/tagalog/tagalog_page
[grammardoc] Using GrammarDoc HTML Documenter
[grammardoc] Documenting /Users/jbaldrid/devel/grammars/tagalog
[grammardoc] Generating documentation to /Users/jbaldrid/devel/grammars/tagalog/tagalog_page
[grammardoc] Parsing grammar.xml
[grammardoc] Parsing lexicon.xml
[grammardoc] Parsing morph.xml
[grammardoc] Parsing rules.xml
[grammardoc] Parsing types.xml
[grammardoc] Writing /Users/jbaldrid/devel/grammars/tagalog/tagalog_page/grammardoc.css
[grammardoc] Writing /Users/jbaldrid/devel/grammars/tagalog/tagalog_page/lexicon.js
[grammardoc] Generating index.html
[grammardoc] Generating lexicon.html
[grammardoc] Generating morph.html
[grammardoc] Generating rules.html
[grammardoc] Generating types.html
[grammardoc] Done
</code>

This creates a webpage in the directory ''tagalog_page'' with the HTML produced from your grammar:

<code>
~/devel/grammars/tagalog jbaldrid$ ls tagalog_page/
grammardoc.css  lexicon.html    morph.html      types.html
index.html      lexicon.js      rules.html
</code>

Look at ''index.html'' using a web browser to see what was produced.