Feature request: Modular labels files

[inariksit]

Many GF grammars are structured as follows:

abstract A = { fun a1, a2 : … } ;

abstract B = A ** { fun b1, b2 : … } ;

If we want to use those grammars with gf-ud, we need the following labels files:

-- A.labels
#fun a1 …
#fun a2 …

and

-- B.labels
#fun a1 …
#fun a2 …
#fun b1 …
#fun b2 …

In order to avoid duplicating labels, it would be better to allow the labels for a given grammar to be in multiple files. In this example, the file B.labels should only contain labels for funs b1 and b2.

When giving the labels files as arguments to gf-ud, we could give a complete list of labels files, e.g.

•  gf-ud ud2gf B <startcat> <lang> A.labels B.labels
  

Or we could keep the existing arguments to ud-gf, and make the module structure a part of the labels files:

• -- B.labels
  #include A.labels
  #fun b1 …
  #fun b2 …

[anka-213]

The #include option sounds like the more backwards-compatible and more convenient option, so I think that's the way to go.