The MAL syntax is summarized below in extended BNF. Alternative constructs are seperated by | and grouped by parenthesis. Optional parts are marked with square brackets. A repetition is marked with either '+' or '*' to indicate at least once and many times, respectively. Lexical tokens are illustrated in small capitals.
| program | : (statement ';') * |
| statement | : moduleStmt [helpinfo] | definition [helpinfo] |
| | includeStmt | stmt | |
| moduleStmt | : MODULE ident | ATOM ident [':'ident] |
| includeStmt | : INCLUDE identifier | INCLUDE string_literal |
| definition | : [UNSAFE] COMMAND header ADDRESS identifier |
| | [UNSAFE] PATTERN header ADDRESS identifier | |
| | [INLINE | UNSAFE ] FUNCTION header statement* END name | |
| | FACTORY header statement* END name | |
| helpinfo | : COMMENT string_literal |
| header | : name '(' params ')' result |
| name | : [ moduleName '.' ] name |
| result | : typeName | '(' params ')' |
| params | : binding [',' binding]* |
| binding | : identifier typeName |
| typeName | : scalarType | columnType | ':' any ['_' digit] |
| scalarType | : ':' identifier |
| columnType | : ':' BAT '[' ':' colElmType ']' |
| colElmType | : scalarType | anyType |
| stmt | : [flow] varlist [':=' expr ] |
| flow | | RETURN | BARRIER | CATCH | LEAVE | REDO | RAISE |
| varlist | : variable | '(' variable [',' variable ] * ')' |
| variable | : identifier |
| expr | : fcncall | [factor operator] factor |
| factor | : literal_constant | NIL | var |
| fcncall | : moduleName '.' name '(' [args] ')' |
| args | : factor [',' factor]* |
