UNL Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

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.