DELIM – Add Missing Utterance Terminators

Status: Current

Purpose

Reimplements CLAN’s delim command, which ensures every main tier has a terminator. Utterances missing a terminator (., ?, !) receive a default period (.). This is typically used as a repair step for files imported from external formats that lack CHAT punctuation conventions.

Usage

chatter clan delim file.cha

Options

This command has no configurable options.

Behavior

For each utterance in the file, if the main tier lacks a terminator, a period (.) is inserted as the default terminator.

Utterances that already have a terminator (., ?, or !) are left unchanged.

Differences from CLAN

• Operates on AST rather than raw text.
• Uses the framework transform pipeline (parse -> transform -> serialize -> write).
• 4 accepted divergences: CLAN writes an empty file when no changes are needed; we always write the full file. This is intentional – the output is always a valid CHAT file.
• Golden test parity: 4 accepted divergences (empty-file behavior).