The UNL-IDE supports: Syntax/Semantics check of UNL documents, graphic representations
of UNL statements, editing of UNL Statements graphically and textually, EnConversion/DeConversion
integration with debugging capabilities, and Arabic annotation capabilities.
Background
The UNL Integrated Development Environment (UNL-IDE) enables users and developers
to view the UNL semantic networks, search UNL documents, write rules, check their
syntax, and debug and watch the Deconversion (Deco) and Enconversion (Enco) outputs
for the given rules and dictionary.
The IDE Consists of Five Components:
- UNL Files Viewer
- UNL Rules Editor
- Deconversion (Deco) Debugger
- Enconversion (Enco) Debugger
- The Universal Parse
Phase I - UNL Files Viewer
In this phase, a tool was developed to enable users to view UNL networks and search
UNL documents using any combination of nodes and relations. The main function of
this tool is to allow users to visualize the UNL sentence, represented in the form
of a semantic network. The tool also provides users with some options that facilitate
viewing the semantic network of a given sentence, such as:
- Moving nodes from their locations.
- Changing the display color of a node, relation, matched node, matched relation,
and selected node.
- Saving the edited file
Phase II - UNL Rule Editor
The UNL rule editor is a tool developed to enable users to write rules and check
them syntactically for errors, and help correct them, if found. Tokens and errors
are highlighted along with an explanation of each error. The types of errors checked
by the application are:
- Rule Type Error: Indicates an invalid type of rule.
- Right or Left Generation Windows Errors: indicates a syntax error in the number
of right or left generation windows.
- Priority Errors: indicates an out-of-range priority. The allowed priority range
is 0-255.
- Missing ';': indicates a missing semi-colon. Rules must end with a semi-colon.
- Structure Error: indicates a general syntax error.
Phase III - Deconversion (Deco) Debugger
This tool has been built to enable users to create a project containing UNL documents
and Rule and Dictionary Files, with which the user can run the Deco, thereby simulating
the output trace file. The user may select any UNL statement from the UNL file to
draw or edit. In addition, the user may edit the Rule file to improve the results.
Phase IV - Enconversion (Enco) Debugger
The Enconversion Debugger is similar to the Deconversion Debugger. It enables the
user to create a project containing UNL documents and Rule and Dictionary files.
With this tool the user can run the Enco, thereby simulating the output trace file.
The user may select any UNL statement from the UNL file to draw or edit. In addition,
the user may edit the Rule file to improve the results.
Phase V – The Universal Parser
The Universal Parser is used to generate UNL expressions from input sentences using
only language-independent annotations. The annotations of the Universal Parser are
a set of tags used to represent the meaning of input sentences. By interpreting
such tags, the Universal Parser generates UNL expressions of these representations.