Difference between foo and #foo in VerSec language?

[Pesa]

I don't understand the difference between a "regular" identifier (foo) and an identifier prefixed by the # sign (#foo). Could this be explained in the language description document?

[yoursunny]

I tested schemaCompile v5.1.0-1-gab45368 with the following schema:

_site: "a"/"blog"
root: _site/_KEY
article: _site/"article"/category/year/month <= author
admin: _site/"admin"/adminName/_KEY <= root
author: _site/_role/authorName/_KEY & { _role: "author" } <= admin
_KEY: "KEY"/_/_/_

The debug output (with two -v flags) is:

VerSec Schema Compiler Copyright (C) 2020 Pollere Inc., v5.1.0-1-gab45368
Certificate templates:

0 strings, 0 bytes (0 overlaps, 0 bytes in stab)
binary schema  is 20 bytes

Changing article to #article, and then the debug output becomes:

VerSec Schema Compiler Copyright (C) 2020 Pollere Inc., v5.1.0-1-gab45368
Publication #article:
  parameters: category year month
  tags: /"a"/"blog"/"article"/category/year/month
  signing chains:
    chain 0: #article <= author <= admin <= root
  templates:
    /"a"/"blog"/"article"/category/year/month { author }
      [ * ]

Certificate templates:
  cert author: /"a"/"blog"/_role/authorName/"KEY"/_/_/_
  cert admin: /"a"/"blog"/"admin"/adminName/"KEY"/_/_/_
  cert root: /"a"/"blog"/"KEY"/_/_/_

12 strings, 69 bytes (3 overlaps, 56 bytes in stab)
binary schema  is 165 bytes

Changing author to #author (in two places), and the compiler crashes.

Based on the above observations:

• foo denotes a certificate template.
• #foo denotes a publication.