[ Author: Vlado Keselj ]

Stefs: System with TypEd Feature Structures
(or Java parser for HPSGs), version 2.0

Some of the Stefs features are:
- it handles cyclic typed attributed-value matrices (AVMs), and
- it has a probabilistic component.
You can download the jar file: stefs.jar.
API specification for Stefs is provided as well.
Stefs can be used as an application (a parser), and also as a library (i.e., a Java package).
For using it as a library, you can take a look at the API specification. One of the potentially interesting classes unrelated to the parser is stefs.avm.Tokenizer.
For using it as a stand-alone application, you can type:
```
java -jar stefs.jar
```
(or: java -classpath stefs.jar stefs.Interpreter) and use the parser directly. You can exit the parser by typing exit or quit, or by entering Ctrl-D on a Unix machine (or similar). If you want parser to interpret an existing script, standard input/output redirection can be used; e.g.,
```
java -jar stefs.jar < input_file > output_file
```

The following examples are included to get you started with downloaded file.

Using Stefs interpreter:

Ex1: Simple context-free example
Ex2: Probabilistic context-free example, with pruning
Ex3: Probabilistic context-free example, with the same grammar and a more complicated syntax, which demonstrates how probabilities are embedded in AVMs.
Ex4: Simple HPSG grammar

Using Stefs as a Java package (i.e., a library):

Stefs is freely available in the binary form (jar file) for non-commercial purposes only. Stefs will soon be released under an open-source licence.