Parsing of user queries in a remote network management platform using extended context-free grammar rules

Abstract

An example embodiment may involve a software application executable on a computing device of a computational instance of a remote network management platform associated with a managed network. The computational instance may contain a database from which information associated with the managed network can be delivered to the client device. The software application may receive, from a client device of the managed network, a natural language query, parse the query using context-free grammar rules in Backus-Naur form (BNF), generate a search sentence based on the parsed query, search the database using the search sentence as a search query, and transmit, to the client device, a result of the search query. The context-free grammar rules may include an extended context-free grammar rule that defines a non-terminal symbol and comprises a Boolean NOT operator that eliminates one or more potential definitions of the non-terminal symbol from consideration when parsing the query.