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authorcsgr <csgr@FreeBSD.org>1994-08-27 09:52:32 +0000
committercsgr <csgr@FreeBSD.org>1994-08-27 09:52:32 +0000
commit7821fe68f78c5f9bfa73efbb4d4be27f466b43c3 (patch)
tree0d201c2dacc5d17c9e9a007512889e6e739c939f /usr.bin/lex
parentad7993daba3542579514f59590a9e4c1eb0ae095 (diff)
downloadFreeBSD-src-7821fe68f78c5f9bfa73efbb4d4be27f466b43c3.zip
FreeBSD-src-7821fe68f78c5f9bfa73efbb4d4be27f466b43c3.tar.gz
Do not install as flex
Submitted by: Geoff
Diffstat (limited to 'usr.bin/lex')
-rw-r--r--usr.bin/lex/Makefile10
-rw-r--r--usr.bin/lex/lex.11001
-rw-r--r--usr.bin/lex/lexdoc.13045
3 files changed, 4050 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/usr.bin/lex/Makefile b/usr.bin/lex/Makefile
index 7f88e6ee..41d4afd 100644
--- a/usr.bin/lex/Makefile
+++ b/usr.bin/lex/Makefile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# $Id$
+# $Id: Makefile,v 1.1.1.1 1994/08/24 13:10:33 csgr Exp $
#
# By default, flex will be configured to generate 8-bit scanners only if the
# -8 flag is given. If you want it to always generate 8-bit scanners, add
@@ -6,13 +6,12 @@
# of all uncompressed scanners.
#
# Bootstrapping of lex is handled automatically.
-# ALso note that flex.skel no longer gets installed.
+# Also note that flex.skel no longer gets installed.
#
# XXX Todo:
# Install as lex++, and install FlexLexer.h
PROG= lex
-LINKS= ${BINDIR}/lex ${BINDIR}/flex
#LINKS+= ${BINDIR}/lex ${BINDIR}/lex++ ${BINDIR}/flex ${BINDIR}/flex++
SRCS= ccl.c dfa.c ecs.c gen.c main.c misc.c nfa.c parse.y \
@@ -20,10 +19,9 @@ SRCS= ccl.c dfa.c ecs.c gen.c main.c misc.c nfa.c parse.y \
OBJS+= scan.o
LFLAGS+= -is
CFLAGS+= -I. -I${.CURDIR}
-MAN1= flex.1 flexdoc.1
-MLINKS= flex.1 lex.1 flexdoc.1 lexdoc.1
+MAN1= lex.1 lexdoc.1
-CLEANFILES+= parse.c parse.h scan.c y.tab.h
+CLEANFILES+= parse.c parse.h scan.c y.tab.h y.tab.c
SUBDIR= lib
diff --git a/usr.bin/lex/lex.1 b/usr.bin/lex/lex.1
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6aba4d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/usr.bin/lex/lex.1
@@ -0,0 +1,1001 @@
+.TH FLEX 1 "November 1993" "Version 2.4"
+.SH NAME
+flex \- fast lexical analyzer generator
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B flex
+.B [\-bcdfhilnpstvwBFILTV78+ \-C[aefFmr] \-Pprefix \-Sskeleton]
+.I [filename ...]
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.I flex
+is a tool for generating
+.I scanners:
+programs which recognized lexical patterns in text.
+.I flex
+reads
+the given input files, or its standard input if no file names are given,
+for a description of a scanner to generate. The description is in
+the form of pairs
+of regular expressions and C code, called
+.I rules. flex
+generates as output a C source file,
+.B lex.yy.c,
+which defines a routine
+.B yylex().
+This file is compiled and linked with the
+.B \-lfl
+library to produce an executable. When the executable is run,
+it analyzes its input for occurrences
+of the regular expressions. Whenever it finds one, it executes
+the corresponding C code.
+.PP
+For full documentation, see
+.B flexdoc(1).
+This manual entry is intended for use as a quick reference.
+.SH OPTIONS
+.I flex
+has the following options:
+.TP
+.B \-b
+generate backing-up information to
+.I lex.backup.
+This is a list of scanner states which require backing up and the input
+characters on which they do so. By adding rules one can remove
+backing-up states. If all backing-up states are eliminated and
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+is used, the generated scanner will run faster.
+.TP
+.B \-c
+is a do-nothing, deprecated option included for POSIX compliance.
+.IP
+.B NOTE:
+in previous releases of
+.I flex
+.B \-c
+specified table-compression options. This functionality is
+now given by the
+.B \-C
+flag. To ease the the impact of this change, when
+.I flex
+encounters
+.B \-c,
+it currently issues a warning message and assumes that
+.B \-C
+was desired instead. In the future this "promotion" of
+.B \-c
+to
+.B \-C
+will go away in the name of full POSIX compliance (unless
+the POSIX meaning is removed first).
+.TP
+.B \-d
+makes the generated scanner run in
+.I debug
+mode. Whenever a pattern is recognized and the global
+.B yy_flex_debug
+is non-zero (which is the default), the scanner will
+write to
+.I stderr
+a line of the form:
+.nf
+
+ --accepting rule at line 53 ("the matched text")
+
+.fi
+The line number refers to the location of the rule in the file
+defining the scanner (i.e., the file that was fed to flex). Messages
+are also generated when the scanner backs up, accepts the
+default rule, reaches the end of its input buffer (or encounters
+a NUL; the two look the same as far as the scanner's concerned),
+or reaches an end-of-file.
+.TP
+.B \-f
+specifies
+.I fast scanner.
+No table compression is done and stdio is bypassed.
+The result is large but fast. This option is equivalent to
+.B \-Cfr
+(see below).
+.TP
+.B \-h
+generates a "help" summary of
+.I flex's
+options to
+.I stderr
+and then exits.
+.TP
+.B \-i
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a
+.I case-insensitive
+scanner. The case of letters given in the
+.I flex
+input patterns will
+be ignored, and tokens in the input will be matched regardless of case. The
+matched text given in
+.I yytext
+will have the preserved case (i.e., it will not be folded).
+.TP
+.B \-l
+turns on maximum compatibility with the original AT&T lex implementation,
+at a considerable performance cost. This option is incompatible with
+.B \-+, \-f, \-F, \-Cf,
+or
+.B \-CF.
+See
+.I flexdoc(1)
+for details.
+.TP
+.B \-n
+is another do-nothing, deprecated option included only for
+POSIX compliance.
+.TP
+.B \-p
+generates a performance report to stderr. The report
+consists of comments regarding features of the
+.I flex
+input file which will cause a loss of performance in the resulting scanner.
+If you give the flag twice, you will also get comments regarding
+features that lead to minor performance losses.
+.TP
+.B \-s
+causes the
+.I default rule
+(that unmatched scanner input is echoed to
+.I stdout)
+to be suppressed. If the scanner encounters input that does not
+match any of its rules, it aborts with an error.
+.TP
+.B \-t
+instructs
+.I flex
+to write the scanner it generates to standard output instead
+of
+.B lex.yy.c.
+.TP
+.B \-v
+specifies that
+.I flex
+should write to
+.I stderr
+a summary of statistics regarding the scanner it generates.
+.TP
+.B \-w
+suppresses warning messages.
+.TP
+.B \-B
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a
+.I batch
+scanner instead of an
+.I interactive
+scanner (see
+.B \-I
+below). See
+.I flexdoc(1)
+for details. Scanners using
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+compression options automatically specify this option, too.
+.TP
+.B \-F
+specifies that the
+.ul
+fast
+scanner table representation should be used (and stdio bypassed).
+This representation is about as fast as the full table representation
+.B (-f),
+and for some sets of patterns will be considerably smaller (and for
+others, larger). It cannot be used with the
+.B \-+
+option. See
+.B flexdoc(1)
+for more details.
+.IP
+This option is equivalent to
+.B \-CFr
+(see below).
+.TP
+.B \-I
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate an
+.I interactive
+scanner, that is, a scanner which stops immediately rather than
+looking ahead if it knows
+that the currently scanned text cannot be part of a longer rule's match.
+This is the opposite of
+.I batch
+scanners (see
+.B \-B
+above). See
+.B flexdoc(1)
+for details.
+.IP
+Note,
+.B \-I
+cannot be used in conjunction with
+.I full
+or
+.I fast tables,
+i.e., the
+.B \-f, \-F, \-Cf,
+or
+.B \-CF
+flags. For other table compression options,
+.B \-I
+is the default.
+.TP
+.B \-L
+instructs
+.I flex
+not to generate
+.B #line
+directives in
+.B lex.yy.c.
+The default is to generate such directives so error
+messages in the actions will be correctly
+located with respect to the original
+.I flex
+input file, and not to
+the fairly meaningless line numbers of
+.B lex.yy.c.
+.TP
+.B \-T
+makes
+.I flex
+run in
+.I trace
+mode. It will generate a lot of messages to
+.I stderr
+concerning
+the form of the input and the resultant non-deterministic and deterministic
+finite automata. This option is mostly for use in maintaining
+.I flex.
+.TP
+.B \-V
+prints the version number to
+.I stderr
+and exits.
+.TP
+.B \-7
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a 7-bit scanner, which can save considerable table space,
+especially when using
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+(and, at most sites,
+.B \-7
+is on by default for these options. To see if this is the case, use the
+.B -v
+verbose flag and check the flag summary it reports).
+.TP
+.B \-8
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate an 8-bit scanner. This is the default except for the
+.B \-Cf
+and
+.B \-CF
+compression options, for which the default is site-dependent, and
+can be checked by inspecting the flag summary generated by the
+.B \-v
+option.
+.TP
+.B \-+
+specifies that you want flex to generate a C++
+scanner class. See the section on Generating C++ Scanners in
+.I flexdoc(1)
+for details.
+.TP
+.B \-C[aefFmr]
+controls the degree of table compression and scanner optimization.
+.IP
+.B \-Ca
+trade off larger tables in the generated scanner for faster performance
+because the elements of the tables are better aligned for memory access
+and computation. This option can double the size of the tables used by
+your scanner.
+.IP
+.B \-Ce
+directs
+.I flex
+to construct
+.I equivalence classes,
+i.e., sets of characters
+which have identical lexical properties.
+Equivalence classes usually give
+dramatic reductions in the final table/object file sizes (typically
+a factor of 2-5) and are pretty cheap performance-wise (one array
+look-up per character scanned).
+.IP
+.B \-Cf
+specifies that the
+.I full
+scanner tables should be generated -
+.I flex
+should not compress the
+tables by taking advantages of similar transition functions for
+different states.
+.IP
+.B \-CF
+specifies that the alternate fast scanner representation (described in
+.B flexdoc(1))
+should be used. This option cannot be used with
+.B \-+.
+.IP
+.B \-Cm
+directs
+.I flex
+to construct
+.I meta-equivalence classes,
+which are sets of equivalence classes (or characters, if equivalence
+classes are not being used) that are commonly used together. Meta-equivalence
+classes are often a big win when using compressed tables, but they
+have a moderate performance impact (one or two "if" tests and one
+array look-up per character scanned).
+.IP
+.B \-Cr
+causes the generated scanner to
+.I bypass
+using stdio for input. In general this option results in a minor
+performance gain only worthwhile if used in conjunction with
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF.
+It can cause surprising behavior if you use stdio yourself to
+read from
+.I yyin
+prior to calling the scanner.
+.IP
+A lone
+.B \-C
+specifies that the scanner tables should be compressed but neither
+equivalence classes nor meta-equivalence classes should be used.
+.IP
+The options
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+and
+.B \-Cm
+do not make sense together - there is no opportunity for meta-equivalence
+classes if the table is not being compressed. Otherwise the options
+may be freely mixed.
+.IP
+The default setting is
+.B \-Cem,
+which specifies that
+.I flex
+should generate equivalence classes
+and meta-equivalence classes. This setting provides the highest
+degree of table compression. You can trade off
+faster-executing scanners at the cost of larger tables with
+the following generally being true:
+.nf
+
+ slowest & smallest
+ -Cem
+ -Cm
+ -Ce
+ -C
+ -C{f,F}e
+ -C{f,F}
+ -C{f,F}a
+ fastest & largest
+
+.fi
+.IP
+.B \-C
+options are cumulative.
+.TP
+.B \-Pprefix
+changes the default
+.I "yy"
+prefix used by
+.I flex
+to be
+.I prefix
+instead. See
+.I flexdoc(1)
+for a description of all the global variables and file names that
+this affects.
+.TP
+.B \-Sskeleton_file
+overrides the default skeleton file from which
+.I flex
+constructs its scanners. You'll never need this option unless you are doing
+.I flex
+maintenance or development.
+.SH SUMMARY OF FLEX REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
+The patterns in the input are written using an extended set of regular
+expressions. These are:
+.nf
+
+ x match the character 'x'
+ . any character except newline
+ [xyz] a "character class"; in this case, the pattern
+ matches either an 'x', a 'y', or a 'z'
+ [abj-oZ] a "character class" with a range in it; matches
+ an 'a', a 'b', any letter from 'j' through 'o',
+ or a 'Z'
+ [^A-Z] a "negated character class", i.e., any character
+ but those in the class. In this case, any
+ character EXCEPT an uppercase letter.
+ [^A-Z\\n] any character EXCEPT an uppercase letter or
+ a newline
+ r* zero or more r's, where r is any regular expression
+ r+ one or more r's
+ r? zero or one r's (that is, "an optional r")
+ r{2,5} anywhere from two to five r's
+ r{2,} two or more r's
+ r{4} exactly 4 r's
+ {name} the expansion of the "name" definition
+ (see above)
+ "[xyz]\\"foo"
+ the literal string: [xyz]"foo
+ \\X if X is an 'a', 'b', 'f', 'n', 'r', 't', or 'v',
+ then the ANSI-C interpretation of \\x.
+ Otherwise, a literal 'X' (used to escape
+ operators such as '*')
+ \\123 the character with octal value 123
+ \\x2a the character with hexadecimal value 2a
+ (r) match an r; parentheses are used to override
+ precedence (see below)
+
+
+ rs the regular expression r followed by the
+ regular expression s; called "concatenation"
+
+
+ r|s either an r or an s
+
+
+ r/s an r but only if it is followed by an s. The
+ s is not part of the matched text. This type
+ of pattern is called as "trailing context".
+ ^r an r, but only at the beginning of a line
+ r$ an r, but only at the end of a line. Equivalent
+ to "r/\\n".
+
+
+ <s>r an r, but only in start condition s (see
+ below for discussion of start conditions)
+ <s1,s2,s3>r
+ same, but in any of start conditions s1,
+ s2, or s3
+ <*>r an r in any start condition, even an exclusive one.
+
+
+ <<EOF>> an end-of-file
+ <s1,s2><<EOF>>
+ an end-of-file when in start condition s1 or s2
+
+.fi
+The regular expressions listed above are grouped according to
+precedence, from highest precedence at the top to lowest at the bottom.
+Those grouped together have equal precedence.
+.PP
+Some notes on patterns:
+.IP -
+Negated character classes
+.I match newlines
+unless "\\n" (or an equivalent escape sequence) is one of the
+characters explicitly present in the negated character class
+(e.g., "[^A-Z\\n]").
+.IP -
+A rule can have at most one instance of trailing context (the '/' operator
+or the '$' operator). The start condition, '^', and "<<EOF>>" patterns
+can only occur at the beginning of a pattern, and, as well as with '/' and '$',
+cannot be grouped inside parentheses. The following are all illegal:
+.nf
+
+ foo/bar$
+ foo|(bar$)
+ foo|^bar
+ <sc1>foo<sc2>bar
+
+.fi
+.SH SUMMARY OF SPECIAL ACTIONS
+In addition to arbitrary C code, the following can appear in actions:
+.IP -
+.B ECHO
+copies yytext to the scanner's output.
+.IP -
+.B BEGIN
+followed by the name of a start condition places the scanner in the
+corresponding start condition.
+.IP -
+.B REJECT
+directs the scanner to proceed on to the "second best" rule which matched the
+input (or a prefix of the input).
+.B yytext
+and
+.B yyleng
+are set up appropriately. Note that
+.B REJECT
+is a particularly expensive feature in terms scanner performance;
+if it is used in
+.I any
+of the scanner's actions it will slow down
+.I all
+of the scanner's matching. Furthermore,
+.B REJECT
+cannot be used with the
+.B \-f
+or
+.B \-F
+options.
+.IP
+Note also that unlike the other special actions,
+.B REJECT
+is a
+.I branch;
+code immediately following it in the action will
+.I not
+be executed.
+.IP -
+.B yymore()
+tells the scanner that the next time it matches a rule, the corresponding
+token should be
+.I appended
+onto the current value of
+.B yytext
+rather than replacing it.
+.IP -
+.B yyless(n)
+returns all but the first
+.I n
+characters of the current token back to the input stream, where they
+will be rescanned when the scanner looks for the next match.
+.B yytext
+and
+.B yyleng
+are adjusted appropriately (e.g.,
+.B yyleng
+will now be equal to
+.I n
+).
+.IP -
+.B unput(c)
+puts the character
+.I c
+back onto the input stream. It will be the next character scanned.
+.IP -
+.B input()
+reads the next character from the input stream (this routine is called
+.B yyinput()
+if the scanner is compiled using
+.B C++).
+.IP -
+.B yyterminate()
+can be used in lieu of a return statement in an action. It terminates
+the scanner and returns a 0 to the scanner's caller, indicating "all done".
+.IP
+By default,
+.B yyterminate()
+is also called when an end-of-file is encountered. It is a macro and
+may be redefined.
+.IP -
+.B YY_NEW_FILE
+is an action available only in <<EOF>> rules. It means "Okay, I've
+set up a new input file, continue scanning". It is no longer required;
+you can just assign
+.I yyin
+to point to a new file in the <<EOF>> action.
+.IP -
+.B yy_create_buffer( file, size )
+takes a
+.I FILE
+pointer and an integer
+.I size.
+It returns a YY_BUFFER_STATE
+handle to a new input buffer large enough to accomodate
+.I size
+characters and associated with the given file. When in doubt, use
+.B YY_BUF_SIZE
+for the size.
+.IP -
+.B yy_switch_to_buffer( new_buffer )
+switches the scanner's processing to scan for tokens from
+the given buffer, which must be a YY_BUFFER_STATE.
+.IP -
+.B yy_delete_buffer( buffer )
+deletes the given buffer.
+.SH VALUES AVAILABLE TO THE USER
+.IP -
+.B char *yytext
+holds the text of the current token. It may be modified but not lengthened
+(you cannot append characters to the end). Modifying the last character
+may affect the activity of rules anchored using '^' during the next scan;
+see
+.B flexdoc(1)
+for details.
+.IP
+If the special directive
+.B %array
+appears in the first section of the scanner description, then
+.B yytext
+is instead declared
+.B char yytext[YYLMAX],
+where
+.B YYLMAX
+is a macro definition that you can redefine in the first section
+if you don't like the default value (generally 8KB). Using
+.B %array
+results in somewhat slower scanners, but the value of
+.B yytext
+becomes immune to calls to
+.I input()
+and
+.I unput(),
+which potentially destroy its value when
+.B yytext
+is a character pointer. The opposite of
+.B %array
+is
+.B %pointer,
+which is the default.
+.IP
+You cannot use
+.B %array
+when generating C++ scanner classes
+(the
+.B \-+
+flag).
+.IP -
+.B int yyleng
+holds the length of the current token.
+.IP -
+.B FILE *yyin
+is the file which by default
+.I flex
+reads from. It may be redefined but doing so only makes sense before
+scanning begins or after an EOF has been encountered. Changing it in
+the midst of scanning will have unexpected results since
+.I flex
+buffers its input; use
+.B yyrestart()
+instead.
+Once scanning terminates because an end-of-file
+has been seen,
+.B
+you can assign
+.I yyin
+at the new input file and then call the scanner again to continue scanning.
+.IP -
+.B void yyrestart( FILE *new_file )
+may be called to point
+.I yyin
+at the new input file. The switch-over to the new file is immediate
+(any previously buffered-up input is lost). Note that calling
+.B yyrestart()
+with
+.I yyin
+as an argument thus throws away the current input buffer and continues
+scanning the same input file.
+.IP -
+.B FILE *yyout
+is the file to which
+.B ECHO
+actions are done. It can be reassigned by the user.
+.IP -
+.B YY_CURRENT_BUFFER
+returns a
+.B YY_BUFFER_STATE
+handle to the current buffer.
+.IP -
+.B YY_START
+returns an integer value corresponding to the current start
+condition. You can subsequently use this value with
+.B BEGIN
+to return to that start condition.
+.SH MACROS AND FUNCTIONS YOU CAN REDEFINE
+.IP -
+.B YY_DECL
+controls how the scanning routine is declared.
+By default, it is "int yylex()", or, if prototypes are being
+used, "int yylex(void)". This definition may be changed by redefining
+the "YY_DECL" macro. Note that
+if you give arguments to the scanning routine using a
+K&R-style/non-prototyped function declaration, you must terminate
+the definition with a semi-colon (;).
+.IP -
+The nature of how the scanner
+gets its input can be controlled by redefining the
+.B YY_INPUT
+macro.
+YY_INPUT's calling sequence is "YY_INPUT(buf,result,max_size)". Its
+action is to place up to
+.I max_size
+characters in the character array
+.I buf
+and return in the integer variable
+.I result
+either the
+number of characters read or the constant YY_NULL (0 on Unix systems)
+to indicate EOF. The default YY_INPUT reads from the
+global file-pointer "yyin".
+A sample redefinition of YY_INPUT (in the definitions
+section of the input file):
+.nf
+
+ %{
+ #undef YY_INPUT
+ #define YY_INPUT(buf,result,max_size) \\
+ { \\
+ int c = getchar(); \\
+ result = (c == EOF) ? YY_NULL : (buf[0] = c, 1); \\
+ }
+ %}
+
+.fi
+.IP -
+When the scanner receives an end-of-file indication from YY_INPUT,
+it then checks the function
+.B yywrap()
+function. If
+.B yywrap()
+returns false (zero), then it is assumed that the
+function has gone ahead and set up
+.I yyin
+to point to another input file, and scanning continues. If it returns
+true (non-zero), then the scanner terminates, returning 0 to its
+caller.
+.IP
+The default
+.B yywrap()
+always returns 1.
+.IP -
+YY_USER_ACTION
+can be redefined to provide an action
+which is always executed prior to the matched rule's action.
+.IP -
+The macro
+.B YY_USER_INIT
+may be redefined to provide an action which is always executed before
+the first scan.
+.IP -
+In the generated scanner, the actions are all gathered in one large
+switch statement and separated using
+.B YY_BREAK,
+which may be redefined. By default, it is simply a "break", to separate
+each rule's action from the following rule's.
+.SH FILES
+.TP
+.B \-lfl
+library with which to link scanners to obtain the default versions
+of
+.I yywrap()
+and/or
+.I main().
+.TP
+.I lex.yy.c
+generated scanner (called
+.I lexyy.c
+on some systems).
+.TP
+.I lex.yy.cc
+generated C++ scanner class, when using
+.B -+.
+.TP
+.I <FlexLexer.h>
+header file defining the C++ scanner base class,
+.B FlexLexer,
+and its derived class,
+.B yyFlexLexer.
+.TP
+.I flex.skl
+skeleton scanner. This file is only used when building flex, not when
+flex executes.
+.TP
+.I lex.backup
+backing-up information for
+.B \-b
+flag (called
+.I lex.bck
+on some systems).
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.PP
+flexdoc(1), lex(1), yacc(1), sed(1), awk(1).
+.PP
+M. E. Lesk and E. Schmidt,
+.I LEX \- Lexical Analyzer Generator
+.SH DIAGNOSTICS
+.PP
+.I reject_used_but_not_detected undefined
+or
+.PP
+.I yymore_used_but_not_detected undefined -
+These errors can occur at compile time. They indicate that the
+scanner uses
+.B REJECT
+or
+.B yymore()
+but that
+.I flex
+failed to notice the fact, meaning that
+.I flex
+scanned the first two sections looking for occurrences of these actions
+and failed to find any, but somehow you snuck some in (via a #include
+file, for example). Make an explicit reference to the action in your
+.I flex
+input file. (Note that previously
+.I flex
+supported a
+.B %used/%unused
+mechanism for dealing with this problem; this feature is still supported
+but now deprecated, and will go away soon unless the author hears from
+people who can argue compellingly that they need it.)
+.PP
+.I flex scanner jammed -
+a scanner compiled with
+.B \-s
+has encountered an input string which wasn't matched by
+any of its rules.
+.PP
+.I warning, rule cannot be matched
+indicates that the given rule
+cannot be matched because it follows other rules that will
+always match the same text as it. See
+.I flexdoc(1)
+for an example.
+.PP
+.I warning,
+.B \-s
+.I
+option given but default rule can be matched
+means that it is possible (perhaps only in a particular start condition)
+that the default rule (match any single character) is the only one
+that will match a particular input. Since
+.PP
+.I scanner input buffer overflowed -
+a scanner rule matched more text than the available dynamic memory.
+.PP
+.I token too large, exceeds YYLMAX -
+your scanner uses
+.B %array
+and one of its rules matched a string longer than the
+.B YYLMAX
+constant (8K bytes by default). You can increase the value by
+#define'ing
+.B YYLMAX
+in the definitions section of your
+.I flex
+input.
+.PP
+.I scanner requires \-8 flag to
+.I use the character 'x' -
+Your scanner specification includes recognizing the 8-bit character
+.I 'x'
+and you did not specify the \-8 flag, and your scanner defaulted to 7-bit
+because you used the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+table compression options.
+.PP
+.I flex scanner push-back overflow -
+you used
+.B unput()
+to push back so much text that the scanner's buffer could not hold
+both the pushed-back text and the current token in
+.B yytext.
+Ideally the scanner should dynamically resize the buffer in this case, but at
+present it does not.
+.PP
+.I
+input buffer overflow, can't enlarge buffer because scanner uses REJECT -
+the scanner was working on matching an extremely large token and needed
+to expand the input buffer. This doesn't work with scanners that use
+.B
+REJECT.
+.PP
+.I
+fatal flex scanner internal error--end of buffer missed -
+This can occur in an scanner which is reentered after a long-jump
+has jumped out (or over) the scanner's activation frame. Before
+reentering the scanner, use:
+.nf
+
+ yyrestart( yyin );
+
+.fi
+or use C++ scanner classes (the
+.B \-+
+option), which are fully reentrant.
+.SH AUTHOR
+Vern Paxson, with the help of many ideas and much inspiration from
+Van Jacobson. Original version by Jef Poskanzer.
+.PP
+See flexdoc(1) for additional credits and the address to send comments to.
+.SH DEFICIENCIES / BUGS
+.PP
+Some trailing context
+patterns cannot be properly matched and generate
+warning messages ("dangerous trailing context"). These are
+patterns where the ending of the
+first part of the rule matches the beginning of the second
+part, such as "zx*/xy*", where the 'x*' matches the 'x' at
+the beginning of the trailing context. (Note that the POSIX draft
+states that the text matched by such patterns is undefined.)
+.PP
+For some trailing context rules, parts which are actually fixed-length are
+not recognized as such, leading to the abovementioned performance loss.
+In particular, parts using '|' or {n} (such as "foo{3}") are always
+considered variable-length.
+.PP
+Combining trailing context with the special '|' action can result in
+.I fixed
+trailing context being turned into the more expensive
+.I variable
+trailing context. For example, in the following:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ abc |
+ xyz/def
+
+.fi
+.PP
+Use of
+.B unput()
+or
+.B input()
+invalidates yytext and yyleng, unless the
+.B %array
+directive
+or the
+.B \-l
+option has been used.
+.PP
+Use of unput() to push back more text than was matched can
+result in the pushed-back text matching a beginning-of-line ('^')
+rule even though it didn't come at the beginning of the line
+(though this is rare!).
+.PP
+Pattern-matching of NUL's is substantially slower than matching other
+characters.
+.PP
+Dynamic resizing of the input buffer is slow, as it entails rescanning
+all the text matched so far by the current (generally huge) token.
+.PP
+.I flex
+does not generate correct #line directives for code internal
+to the scanner; thus, bugs in
+.I flex.skl
+yield bogus line numbers.
+.PP
+Due to both buffering of input and read-ahead, you cannot intermix
+calls to <stdio.h> routines, such as, for example,
+.B getchar(),
+with
+.I flex
+rules and expect it to work. Call
+.B input()
+instead.
+.PP
+The total table entries listed by the
+.B \-v
+flag excludes the number of table entries needed to determine
+what rule has been matched. The number of entries is equal
+to the number of DFA states if the scanner does not use
+.B REJECT,
+and somewhat greater than the number of states if it does.
+.PP
+.B REJECT
+cannot be used with the
+.B \-f
+or
+.B \-F
+options.
+.PP
+The
+.I flex
+internal algorithms need documentation.
diff --git a/usr.bin/lex/lexdoc.1 b/usr.bin/lex/lexdoc.1
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b80d569
--- /dev/null
+++ b/usr.bin/lex/lexdoc.1
@@ -0,0 +1,3045 @@
+.TH FLEXDOC 1 "November 1993" "Version 2.4"
+.SH NAME
+flexdoc \- documentation for flex, fast lexical analyzer generator
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B flex
+.B [\-bcdfhilnpstvwBFILTV78+ \-C[aefFmr] \-Pprefix \-Sskeleton]
+.I [filename ...]
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.I flex
+is a tool for generating
+.I scanners:
+programs which recognized lexical patterns in text.
+.I flex
+reads
+the given input files, or its standard input if no file names are given,
+for a description of a scanner to generate. The description is in
+the form of pairs
+of regular expressions and C code, called
+.I rules. flex
+generates as output a C source file,
+.B lex.yy.c,
+which defines a routine
+.B yylex().
+This file is compiled and linked with the
+.B \-lfl
+library to produce an executable. When the executable is run,
+it analyzes its input for occurrences
+of the regular expressions. Whenever it finds one, it executes
+the corresponding C code.
+.SH SOME SIMPLE EXAMPLES
+.PP
+First some simple examples to get the flavor of how one uses
+.I flex.
+The following
+.I flex
+input specifies a scanner which whenever it encounters the string
+"username" will replace it with the user's login name:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ username printf( "%s", getlogin() );
+
+.fi
+By default, any text not matched by a
+.I flex
+scanner
+is copied to the output, so the net effect of this scanner is
+to copy its input file to its output with each occurrence
+of "username" expanded.
+In this input, there is just one rule. "username" is the
+.I pattern
+and the "printf" is the
+.I action.
+The "%%" marks the beginning of the rules.
+.PP
+Here's another simple example:
+.nf
+
+ int num_lines = 0, num_chars = 0;
+
+ %%
+ \\n ++num_lines; ++num_chars;
+ . ++num_chars;
+
+ %%
+ main()
+ {
+ yylex();
+ printf( "# of lines = %d, # of chars = %d\\n",
+ num_lines, num_chars );
+ }
+
+.fi
+This scanner counts the number of characters and the number
+of lines in its input (it produces no output other than the
+final report on the counts). The first line
+declares two globals, "num_lines" and "num_chars", which are accessible
+both inside
+.B yylex()
+and in the
+.B main()
+routine declared after the second "%%". There are two rules, one
+which matches a newline ("\\n") and increments both the line count and
+the character count, and one which matches any character other than
+a newline (indicated by the "." regular expression).
+.PP
+A somewhat more complicated example:
+.nf
+
+ /* scanner for a toy Pascal-like language */
+
+ %{
+ /* need this for the call to atof() below */
+ #include <math.h>
+ %}
+
+ DIGIT [0-9]
+ ID [a-z][a-z0-9]*
+
+ %%
+
+ {DIGIT}+ {
+ printf( "An integer: %s (%d)\\n", yytext,
+ atoi( yytext ) );
+ }
+
+ {DIGIT}+"."{DIGIT}* {
+ printf( "A float: %s (%g)\\n", yytext,
+ atof( yytext ) );
+ }
+
+ if|then|begin|end|procedure|function {
+ printf( "A keyword: %s\\n", yytext );
+ }
+
+ {ID} printf( "An identifier: %s\\n", yytext );
+
+ "+"|"-"|"*"|"/" printf( "An operator: %s\\n", yytext );
+
+ "{"[^}\\n]*"}" /* eat up one-line comments */
+
+ [ \\t\\n]+ /* eat up whitespace */
+
+ . printf( "Unrecognized character: %s\\n", yytext );
+
+ %%
+
+ main( argc, argv )
+ int argc;
+ char **argv;
+ {
+ ++argv, --argc; /* skip over program name */
+ if ( argc > 0 )
+ yyin = fopen( argv[0], "r" );
+ else
+ yyin = stdin;
+
+ yylex();
+ }
+
+.fi
+This is the beginnings of a simple scanner for a language like
+Pascal. It identifies different types of
+.I tokens
+and reports on what it has seen.
+.PP
+The details of this example will be explained in the following
+sections.
+.SH FORMAT OF THE INPUT FILE
+The
+.I flex
+input file consists of three sections, separated by a line with just
+.B %%
+in it:
+.nf
+
+ definitions
+ %%
+ rules
+ %%
+ user code
+
+.fi
+The
+.I definitions
+section contains declarations of simple
+.I name
+definitions to simplify the scanner specification, and declarations of
+.I start conditions,
+which are explained in a later section.
+.PP
+Name definitions have the form:
+.nf
+
+ name definition
+
+.fi
+The "name" is a word beginning with a letter or an underscore ('_')
+followed by zero or more letters, digits, '_', or '-' (dash).
+The definition is taken to begin at the first non-white-space character
+following the name and continuing to the end of the line.
+The definition can subsequently be referred to using "{name}", which
+will expand to "(definition)". For example,
+.nf
+
+ DIGIT [0-9]
+ ID [a-z][a-z0-9]*
+
+.fi
+defines "DIGIT" to be a regular expression which matches a
+single digit, and
+"ID" to be a regular expression which matches a letter
+followed by zero-or-more letters-or-digits.
+A subsequent reference to
+.nf
+
+ {DIGIT}+"."{DIGIT}*
+
+.fi
+is identical to
+.nf
+
+ ([0-9])+"."([0-9])*
+
+.fi
+and matches one-or-more digits followed by a '.' followed
+by zero-or-more digits.
+.PP
+The
+.I rules
+section of the
+.I flex
+input contains a series of rules of the form:
+.nf
+
+ pattern action
+
+.fi
+where the pattern must be unindented and the action must begin
+on the same line.
+.PP
+See below for a further description of patterns and actions.
+.PP
+Finally, the user code section is simply copied to
+.B lex.yy.c
+verbatim.
+It is used for companion routines which call or are called
+by the scanner. The presence of this section is optional;
+if it is missing, the second
+.B %%
+in the input file may be skipped, too.
+.PP
+In the definitions and rules sections, any
+.I indented
+text or text enclosed in
+.B %{
+and
+.B %}
+is copied verbatim to the output (with the %{}'s removed).
+The %{}'s must appear unindented on lines by themselves.
+.PP
+In the rules section,
+any indented or %{} text appearing before the
+first rule may be used to declare variables
+which are local to the scanning routine and (after the declarations)
+code which is to be executed whenever the scanning routine is entered.
+Other indented or %{} text in the rule section is still copied to the output,
+but its meaning is not well-defined and it may well cause compile-time
+errors (this feature is present for
+.I POSIX
+compliance; see below for other such features).
+.PP
+In the definitions section (but not in the rules section),
+an unindented comment (i.e., a line
+beginning with "/*") is also copied verbatim to the output up
+to the next "*/".
+.SH PATTERNS
+The patterns in the input are written using an extended set of regular
+expressions. These are:
+.nf
+
+ x match the character 'x'
+ . any character except newline
+ [xyz] a "character class"; in this case, the pattern
+ matches either an 'x', a 'y', or a 'z'
+ [abj-oZ] a "character class" with a range in it; matches
+ an 'a', a 'b', any letter from 'j' through 'o',
+ or a 'Z'
+ [^A-Z] a "negated character class", i.e., any character
+ but those in the class. In this case, any
+ character EXCEPT an uppercase letter.
+ [^A-Z\\n] any character EXCEPT an uppercase letter or
+ a newline
+ r* zero or more r's, where r is any regular expression
+ r+ one or more r's
+ r? zero or one r's (that is, "an optional r")
+ r{2,5} anywhere from two to five r's
+ r{2,} two or more r's
+ r{4} exactly 4 r's
+ {name} the expansion of the "name" definition
+ (see above)
+ "[xyz]\\"foo"
+ the literal string: [xyz]"foo
+ \\X if X is an 'a', 'b', 'f', 'n', 'r', 't', or 'v',
+ then the ANSI-C interpretation of \\x.
+ Otherwise, a literal 'X' (used to escape
+ operators such as '*')
+ \\123 the character with octal value 123
+ \\x2a the character with hexadecimal value 2a
+ (r) match an r; parentheses are used to override
+ precedence (see below)
+
+
+ rs the regular expression r followed by the
+ regular expression s; called "concatenation"
+
+
+ r|s either an r or an s
+
+
+ r/s an r but only if it is followed by an s. The
+ s is not part of the matched text. This type
+ of pattern is called as "trailing context".
+ ^r an r, but only at the beginning of a line
+ r$ an r, but only at the end of a line. Equivalent
+ to "r/\\n".
+
+
+ <s>r an r, but only in start condition s (see
+ below for discussion of start conditions)
+ <s1,s2,s3>r
+ same, but in any of start conditions s1,
+ s2, or s3
+ <*>r an r in any start condition, even an exclusive one.
+
+
+ <<EOF>> an end-of-file
+ <s1,s2><<EOF>>
+ an end-of-file when in start condition s1 or s2
+
+.fi
+Note that inside of a character class, all regular expression operators
+lose their special meaning except escape ('\\') and the character class
+operators, '-', ']', and, at the beginning of the class, '^'.
+.PP
+The regular expressions listed above are grouped according to
+precedence, from highest precedence at the top to lowest at the bottom.
+Those grouped together have equal precedence. For example,
+.nf
+
+ foo|bar*
+
+.fi
+is the same as
+.nf
+
+ (foo)|(ba(r*))
+
+.fi
+since the '*' operator has higher precedence than concatenation,
+and concatenation higher than alternation ('|'). This pattern
+therefore matches
+.I either
+the string "foo"
+.I or
+the string "ba" followed by zero-or-more r's.
+To match "foo" or zero-or-more "bar"'s, use:
+.nf
+
+ foo|(bar)*
+
+.fi
+and to match zero-or-more "foo"'s-or-"bar"'s:
+.nf
+
+ (foo|bar)*
+
+.fi
+.PP
+Some notes on patterns:
+.IP -
+A negated character class such as the example "[^A-Z]"
+above
+.I will match a newline
+unless "\\n" (or an equivalent escape sequence) is one of the
+characters explicitly present in the negated character class
+(e.g., "[^A-Z\\n]"). This is unlike how many other regular
+expression tools treat negated character classes, but unfortunately
+the inconsistency is historically entrenched.
+Matching newlines means that a pattern like [^"]* can match the entire
+input unless there's another quote in the input.
+.IP -
+A rule can have at most one instance of trailing context (the '/' operator
+or the '$' operator). The start condition, '^', and "<<EOF>>" patterns
+can only occur at the beginning of a pattern, and, as well as with '/' and '$',
+cannot be grouped inside parentheses. A '^' which does not occur at
+the beginning of a rule or a '$' which does not occur at the end of
+a rule loses its special properties and is treated as a normal character.
+.IP
+The following are illegal:
+.nf
+
+ foo/bar$
+ <sc1>foo<sc2>bar
+
+.fi
+Note that the first of these, can be written "foo/bar\\n".
+.IP
+The following will result in '$' or '^' being treated as a normal character:
+.nf
+
+ foo|(bar$)
+ foo|^bar
+
+.fi
+If what's wanted is a "foo" or a bar-followed-by-a-newline, the following
+could be used (the special '|' action is explained below):
+.nf
+
+ foo |
+ bar$ /* action goes here */
+
+.fi
+A similar trick will work for matching a foo or a
+bar-at-the-beginning-of-a-line.
+.SH HOW THE INPUT IS MATCHED
+When the generated scanner is run, it analyzes its input looking
+for strings which match any of its patterns. If it finds more than
+one match, it takes the one matching the most text (for trailing
+context rules, this includes the length of the trailing part, even
+though it will then be returned to the input). If it finds two
+or more matches of the same length, the
+rule listed first in the
+.I flex
+input file is chosen.
+.PP
+Once the match is determined, the text corresponding to the match
+(called the
+.I token)
+is made available in the global character pointer
+.B yytext,
+and its length in the global integer
+.B yyleng.
+The
+.I action
+corresponding to the matched pattern is then executed (a more
+detailed description of actions follows), and then the remaining
+input is scanned for another match.
+.PP
+If no match is found, then the
+.I default rule
+is executed: the next character in the input is considered matched and
+copied to the standard output. Thus, the simplest legal
+.I flex
+input is:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+
+.fi
+which generates a scanner that simply copies its input (one character
+at a time) to its output.
+.PP
+Note that
+.B yytext
+can be defined in two different ways: either as a character
+.I pointer
+or as a character
+.I array.
+You can control which definition
+.I flex
+uses by including one of the special directives
+.B %pointer
+or
+.B %array
+in the first (definitions) section of your flex input. The default is
+.B %pointer,
+unless you use the
+.B -l
+lex compatibility option, in which case
+.B yytext
+will be an array.
+The advantage of using
+.B %pointer
+is substantially faster scanning and no buffer overflow when matching
+very large tokens (unless you run out of dynamic memory). The disadvantage
+is that you are restricted in how your actions can modify
+.B yytext
+(see the next section), and calls to the
+.B input()
+and
+.B unput()
+functions destroy the present contents of
+.B yytext,
+which can be a considerable porting headache when moving between different
+.I lex
+versions.
+.PP
+The advantage of
+.B %array
+is that you can then modify
+.B yytext
+to your heart's content, and calls to
+.B input()
+and
+.B unput()
+do not destroy
+.B yytext
+(see below). Furthermore, existing
+.I lex
+programs sometimes access
+.B yytext
+externally using declarations of the form:
+.nf
+ extern char yytext[];
+.fi
+This definition is erroneous when used with
+.B %pointer,
+but correct for
+.B %array.
+.PP
+.B %array
+defines
+.B yytext
+to be an array of
+.B YYLMAX
+characters, which defaults to a fairly large value. You can change
+the size by simply #define'ing
+.B YYLMAX
+to a different value in the first section of your
+.I flex
+input. As mentioned above, with
+.B %pointer
+yytext grows dynamically to accomodate large tokens. While this means your
+.B %pointer
+scanner can accomodate very large tokens (such as matching entire blocks
+of comments), bear in mind that each time the scanner must resize
+.B yytext
+it also must rescan the entire token from the beginning, so matching such
+tokens can prove slow.
+.B yytext
+presently does
+.I not
+dynamically grow if a call to
+.B unput()
+results in too much text being pushed back; instead, a run-time error results.
+.PP
+Also note that you cannot use
+.B %array
+with C++ scanner classes
+(the
+.B \-+
+option; see below).
+.SH ACTIONS
+Each pattern in a rule has a corresponding action, which can be any
+arbitrary C statement. The pattern ends at the first non-escaped
+whitespace character; the remainder of the line is its action. If the
+action is empty, then when the pattern is matched the input token
+is simply discarded. For example, here is the specification for a program
+which deletes all occurrences of "zap me" from its input:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ "zap me"
+
+.fi
+(It will copy all other characters in the input to the output since
+they will be matched by the default rule.)
+.PP
+Here is a program which compresses multiple blanks and tabs down to
+a single blank, and throws away whitespace found at the end of a line:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ [ \\t]+ putchar( ' ' );
+ [ \\t]+$ /* ignore this token */
+
+.fi
+.PP
+If the action contains a '{', then the action spans till the balancing '}'
+is found, and the action may cross multiple lines.
+.I flex
+knows about C strings and comments and won't be fooled by braces found
+within them, but also allows actions to begin with
+.B %{
+and will consider the action to be all the text up to the next
+.B %}
+(regardless of ordinary braces inside the action).
+.PP
+An action consisting solely of a vertical bar ('|') means "same as
+the action for the next rule." See below for an illustration.
+.PP
+Actions can include arbitrary C code, including
+.B return
+statements to return a value to whatever routine called
+.B yylex().
+Each time
+.B yylex()
+is called it continues processing tokens from where it last left
+off until it either reaches
+the end of the file or executes a return.
+.PP
+Actions are free to modify
+.B yytext
+except for lengthening it (adding
+characters to its end--these will overwrite later characters in the
+input stream). Modifying the final character of yytext may alter
+whether when scanning resumes rules anchored with '^' are active.
+Specifically, changing the final character of yytext to a newline will
+activate such rules on the next scan, and changing it to anything else
+will deactivate the rules. Users should not rely on this behavior being
+present in future releases. Finally, note that none of this paragraph
+applies when using
+.B %array
+(see above).
+.PP
+Actions are free to modify
+.B yyleng
+except they should not do so if the action also includes use of
+.B yymore()
+(see below).
+.PP
+There are a number of special directives which can be included within
+an action:
+.IP -
+.B ECHO
+copies yytext to the scanner's output.
+.IP -
+.B BEGIN
+followed by the name of a start condition places the scanner in the
+corresponding start condition (see below).
+.IP -
+.B REJECT
+directs the scanner to proceed on to the "second best" rule which matched the
+input (or a prefix of the input). The rule is chosen as described
+above in "How the Input is Matched", and
+.B yytext
+and
+.B yyleng
+set up appropriately.
+It may either be one which matched as much text
+as the originally chosen rule but came later in the
+.I flex
+input file, or one which matched less text.
+For example, the following will both count the
+words in the input and call the routine special() whenever "frob" is seen:
+.nf
+
+ int word_count = 0;
+ %%
+
+ frob special(); REJECT;
+ [^ \\t\\n]+ ++word_count;
+
+.fi
+Without the
+.B REJECT,
+any "frob"'s in the input would not be counted as words, since the
+scanner normally executes only one action per token.
+Multiple
+.B REJECT's
+are allowed, each one finding the next best choice to the currently
+active rule. For example, when the following scanner scans the token
+"abcd", it will write "abcdabcaba" to the output:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ a |
+ ab |
+ abc |
+ abcd ECHO; REJECT;
+ .|\\n /* eat up any unmatched character */
+
+.fi
+(The first three rules share the fourth's action since they use
+the special '|' action.)
+.B REJECT
+is a particularly expensive feature in terms scanner performance;
+if it is used in
+.I any
+of the scanner's actions it will slow down
+.I all
+of the scanner's matching. Furthermore,
+.B REJECT
+cannot be used with the
+.I -Cf
+or
+.I -CF
+options (see below).
+.IP
+Note also that unlike the other special actions,
+.B REJECT
+is a
+.I branch;
+code immediately following it in the action will
+.I not
+be executed.
+.IP -
+.B yymore()
+tells the scanner that the next time it matches a rule, the corresponding
+token should be
+.I appended
+onto the current value of
+.B yytext
+rather than replacing it. For example, given the input "mega-kludge"
+the following will write "mega-mega-kludge" to the output:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ mega- ECHO; yymore();
+ kludge ECHO;
+
+.fi
+First "mega-" is matched and echoed to the output. Then "kludge"
+is matched, but the previous "mega-" is still hanging around at the
+beginning of
+.B yytext
+so the
+.B ECHO
+for the "kludge" rule will actually write "mega-kludge".
+The presence of
+.B yymore()
+in the scanner's action entails a minor performance penalty in the
+scanner's matching speed.
+.IP -
+.B yyless(n)
+returns all but the first
+.I n
+characters of the current token back to the input stream, where they
+will be rescanned when the scanner looks for the next match.
+.B yytext
+and
+.B yyleng
+are adjusted appropriately (e.g.,
+.B yyleng
+will now be equal to
+.I n
+). For example, on the input "foobar" the following will write out
+"foobarbar":
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ foobar ECHO; yyless(3);
+ [a-z]+ ECHO;
+
+.fi
+An argument of 0 to
+.B yyless
+will cause the entire current input string to be scanned again. Unless you've
+changed how the scanner will subsequently process its input (using
+.B BEGIN,
+for example), this will result in an endless loop.
+.PP
+Note that
+.B yyless
+is a macro and can only be used in the flex input file, not from
+other source files.
+.IP -
+.B unput(c)
+puts the character
+.I c
+back onto the input stream. It will be the next character scanned.
+The following action will take the current token and cause it
+to be rescanned enclosed in parentheses.
+.nf
+
+ {
+ int i;
+ unput( ')' );
+ for ( i = yyleng - 1; i >= 0; --i )
+ unput( yytext[i] );
+ unput( '(' );
+ }
+
+.fi
+Note that since each
+.B unput()
+puts the given character back at the
+.I beginning
+of the input stream, pushing back strings must be done back-to-front.
+Also note that you cannot put back
+.B EOF
+to attempt to mark the input stream with an end-of-file.
+.IP -
+.B input()
+reads the next character from the input stream. For example,
+the following is one way to eat up C comments:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ "/*" {
+ register int c;
+
+ for ( ; ; )
+ {
+ while ( (c = input()) != '*' &&
+ c != EOF )
+ ; /* eat up text of comment */
+
+ if ( c == '*' )
+ {
+ while ( (c = input()) == '*' )
+ ;
+ if ( c == '/' )
+ break; /* found the end */
+ }
+
+ if ( c == EOF )
+ {
+ error( "EOF in comment" );
+ break;
+ }
+ }
+ }
+
+.fi
+(Note that if the scanner is compiled using
+.B C++,
+then
+.B input()
+is instead referred to as
+.B yyinput(),
+in order to avoid a name clash with the
+.B C++
+stream by the name of
+.I input.)
+.IP -
+.B yyterminate()
+can be used in lieu of a return statement in an action. It terminates
+the scanner and returns a 0 to the scanner's caller, indicating "all done".
+By default,
+.B yyterminate()
+is also called when an end-of-file is encountered. It is a macro and
+may be redefined.
+.SH THE GENERATED SCANNER
+The output of
+.I flex
+is the file
+.B lex.yy.c,
+which contains the scanning routine
+.B yylex(),
+a number of tables used by it for matching tokens, and a number
+of auxiliary routines and macros. By default,
+.B yylex()
+is declared as follows:
+.nf
+
+ int yylex()
+ {
+ ... various definitions and the actions in here ...
+ }
+
+.fi
+(If your environment supports function prototypes, then it will
+be "int yylex( void )".) This definition may be changed by defining
+the "YY_DECL" macro. For example, you could use:
+.nf
+
+ #define YY_DECL float lexscan( a, b ) float a, b;
+
+.fi
+to give the scanning routine the name
+.I lexscan,
+returning a float, and taking two floats as arguments. Note that
+if you give arguments to the scanning routine using a
+K&R-style/non-prototyped function declaration, you must terminate
+the definition with a semi-colon (;).
+.PP
+Whenever
+.B yylex()
+is called, it scans tokens from the global input file
+.I yyin
+(which defaults to stdin). It continues until it either reaches
+an end-of-file (at which point it returns the value 0) or
+one of its actions executes a
+.I return
+statement.
+.PP
+If the scanner reaches an end-of-file, subsequent calls are undefined
+unless either
+.I yyin
+is pointed at a new input file (in which case scanning continues from
+that file), or
+.B yyrestart()
+is called.
+.B yyrestart()
+takes one argument, a
+.B FILE *
+pointer, and initializes
+.I yyin
+for scanning from that file. Essentially there is no difference between
+just assigning
+.I yyin
+to a new input file or using
+.B yyrestart()
+to do so; the latter is available for compatibility with previous versions
+of
+.I flex,
+and because it can be used to switch input files in the middle of scanning.
+It can also be used to throw away the current input buffer, by calling
+it with an argument of
+.I yyin.
+.PP
+If
+.B yylex()
+stops scanning due to executing a
+.I return
+statement in one of the actions, the scanner may then be called again and it
+will resume scanning where it left off.
+.PP
+By default (and for purposes of efficiency), the scanner uses
+block-reads rather than simple
+.I getc()
+calls to read characters from
+.I yyin.
+The nature of how it gets its input can be controlled by defining the
+.B YY_INPUT
+macro.
+YY_INPUT's calling sequence is "YY_INPUT(buf,result,max_size)". Its
+action is to place up to
+.I max_size
+characters in the character array
+.I buf
+and return in the integer variable
+.I result
+either the
+number of characters read or the constant YY_NULL (0 on Unix systems)
+to indicate EOF. The default YY_INPUT reads from the
+global file-pointer "yyin".
+.PP
+A sample definition of YY_INPUT (in the definitions
+section of the input file):
+.nf
+
+ %{
+ #define YY_INPUT(buf,result,max_size) \\
+ { \\
+ int c = getchar(); \\
+ result = (c == EOF) ? YY_NULL : (buf[0] = c, 1); \\
+ }
+ %}
+
+.fi
+This definition will change the input processing to occur
+one character at a time.
+.PP
+You also can add in things like keeping track of the
+input line number this way; but don't expect your scanner to
+go very fast.
+.PP
+When the scanner receives an end-of-file indication from YY_INPUT,
+it then checks the
+.B yywrap()
+function. If
+.B yywrap()
+returns false (zero), then it is assumed that the
+function has gone ahead and set up
+.I yyin
+to point to another input file, and scanning continues. If it returns
+true (non-zero), then the scanner terminates, returning 0 to its
+caller.
+.PP
+The default
+.B yywrap()
+always returns 1.
+.PP
+The scanner writes its
+.B ECHO
+output to the
+.I yyout
+global (default, stdout), which may be redefined by the user simply
+by assigning it to some other
+.B FILE
+pointer.
+.SH START CONDITIONS
+.I flex
+provides a mechanism for conditionally activating rules. Any rule
+whose pattern is prefixed with "<sc>" will only be active when
+the scanner is in the start condition named "sc". For example,
+.nf
+
+ <STRING>[^"]* { /* eat up the string body ... */
+ ...
+ }
+
+.fi
+will be active only when the scanner is in the "STRING" start
+condition, and
+.nf
+
+ <INITIAL,STRING,QUOTE>\\. { /* handle an escape ... */
+ ...
+ }
+
+.fi
+will be active only when the current start condition is
+either "INITIAL", "STRING", or "QUOTE".
+.PP
+Start conditions
+are declared in the definitions (first) section of the input
+using unindented lines beginning with either
+.B %s
+or
+.B %x
+followed by a list of names.
+The former declares
+.I inclusive
+start conditions, the latter
+.I exclusive
+start conditions. A start condition is activated using the
+.B BEGIN
+action. Until the next
+.B BEGIN
+action is executed, rules with the given start
+condition will be active and
+rules with other start conditions will be inactive.
+If the start condition is
+.I inclusive,
+then rules with no start conditions at all will also be active.
+If it is
+.I exclusive,
+then
+.I only
+rules qualified with the start condition will be active.
+A set of rules contingent on the same exclusive start condition
+describe a scanner which is independent of any of the other rules in the
+.I flex
+input. Because of this,
+exclusive start conditions make it easy to specify "mini-scanners"
+which scan portions of the input that are syntactically different
+from the rest (e.g., comments).
+.PP
+If the distinction between inclusive and exclusive start conditions
+is still a little vague, here's a simple example illustrating the
+connection between the two. The set of rules:
+.nf
+
+ %s example
+ %%
+ <example>foo /* do something */
+
+.fi
+is equivalent to
+.nf
+
+ %x example
+ %%
+ <INITIAL,example>foo /* do something */
+
+.fi
+.PP
+Also note that the special start-condition specifier
+.B <*>
+matches every start condition. Thus, the above example could also
+have been written;
+.nf
+
+ %x example
+ %%
+ <*>foo /* do something */
+
+.fi
+.PP
+The default rule (to
+.B ECHO
+any unmatched character) remains active in start conditions.
+.PP
+.B BEGIN(0)
+returns to the original state where only the rules with
+no start conditions are active. This state can also be
+referred to as the start-condition "INITIAL", so
+.B BEGIN(INITIAL)
+is equivalent to
+.B BEGIN(0).
+(The parentheses around the start condition name are not required but
+are considered good style.)
+.PP
+.B BEGIN
+actions can also be given as indented code at the beginning
+of the rules section. For example, the following will cause
+the scanner to enter the "SPECIAL" start condition whenever
+.I yylex()
+is called and the global variable
+.I enter_special
+is true:
+.nf
+
+ int enter_special;
+
+ %x SPECIAL
+ %%
+ if ( enter_special )
+ BEGIN(SPECIAL);
+
+ <SPECIAL>blahblahblah
+ ...more rules follow...
+
+.fi
+.PP
+To illustrate the uses of start conditions,
+here is a scanner which provides two different interpretations
+of a string like "123.456". By default it will treat it as
+as three tokens, the integer "123", a dot ('.'), and the integer "456".
+But if the string is preceded earlier in the line by the string
+"expect-floats"
+it will treat it as a single token, the floating-point number
+123.456:
+.nf
+
+ %{
+ #include <math.h>
+ %}
+ %s expect
+
+ %%
+ expect-floats BEGIN(expect);
+
+ <expect>[0-9]+"."[0-9]+ {
+ printf( "found a float, = %f\\n",
+ atof( yytext ) );
+ }
+ <expect>\\n {
+ /* that's the end of the line, so
+ * we need another "expect-number"
+ * before we'll recognize any more
+ * numbers
+ */
+ BEGIN(INITIAL);
+ }
+
+ [0-9]+ {
+ printf( "found an integer, = %d\\n",
+ atoi( yytext ) );
+ }
+
+ "." printf( "found a dot\\n" );
+
+.fi
+Here is a scanner which recognizes (and discards) C comments while
+maintaining a count of the current input line.
+.nf
+
+ %x comment
+ %%
+ int line_num = 1;
+
+ "/*" BEGIN(comment);
+
+ <comment>[^*\\n]* /* eat anything that's not a '*' */
+ <comment>"*"+[^*/\\n]* /* eat up '*'s not followed by '/'s */
+ <comment>\\n ++line_num;
+ <comment>"*"+"/" BEGIN(INITIAL);
+
+.fi
+This scanner goes to a bit of trouble to match as much
+text as possible with each rule. In general, when attempting to write
+a high-speed scanner try to match as much possible in each rule, as
+it's a big win.
+.PP
+Note that start-conditions names are really integer values and
+can be stored as such. Thus, the above could be extended in the
+following fashion:
+.nf
+
+ %x comment foo
+ %%
+ int line_num = 1;
+ int comment_caller;
+
+ "/*" {
+ comment_caller = INITIAL;
+ BEGIN(comment);
+ }
+
+ ...
+
+ <foo>"/*" {
+ comment_caller = foo;
+ BEGIN(comment);
+ }
+
+ <comment>[^*\\n]* /* eat anything that's not a '*' */
+ <comment>"*"+[^*/\\n]* /* eat up '*'s not followed by '/'s */
+ <comment>\\n ++line_num;
+ <comment>"*"+"/" BEGIN(comment_caller);
+
+.fi
+Furthermore, you can access the current start condition using
+the integer-valued
+.B YY_START
+macro. For example, the above assignments to
+.I comment_caller
+could instead be written
+.nf
+
+ comment_caller = YY_START;
+.fi
+.PP
+Note that start conditions do not have their own name-space; %s's and %x's
+declare names in the same fashion as #define's.
+.PP
+Finally, here's an example of how to match C-style quoted strings using
+exclusive start conditions, including expanded escape sequences (but
+not including checking for a string that's too long):
+.nf
+
+ %x str
+
+ %%
+ char string_buf[MAX_STR_CONST];
+ char *string_buf_ptr;
+
+
+ \\" string_buf_ptr = string_buf; BEGIN(str);
+
+ <str>\\" { /* saw closing quote - all done */
+ BEGIN(INITIAL);
+ *string_buf_ptr = '\\0';
+ /* return string constant token type and
+ * value to parser
+ */
+ }
+
+ <str>\\n {
+ /* error - unterminated string constant */
+ /* generate error message */
+ }
+
+ <str>\\\\[0-7]{1,3} {
+ /* octal escape sequence */
+ int result;
+
+ (void) sscanf( yytext + 1, "%o", &result );
+
+ if ( result > 0xff )
+ /* error, constant is out-of-bounds */
+
+ *string_buf_ptr++ = result;
+ }
+
+ <str>\\\\[0-9]+ {
+ /* generate error - bad escape sequence; something
+ * like '\\48' or '\\0777777'
+ */
+ }
+
+ <str>\\\\n *string_buf_ptr++ = '\\n';
+ <str>\\\\t *string_buf_ptr++ = '\\t';
+ <str>\\\\r *string_buf_ptr++ = '\\r';
+ <str>\\\\b *string_buf_ptr++ = '\\b';
+ <str>\\\\f *string_buf_ptr++ = '\\f';
+
+ <str>\\\\(.|\\n) *string_buf_ptr++ = yytext[1];
+
+ <str>[^\\\\\\n\\"]+ {
+ char *yytext_ptr = yytext;
+
+ while ( *yytext_ptr )
+ *string_buf_ptr++ = *yytext_ptr++;
+ }
+
+.fi
+.SH MULTIPLE INPUT BUFFERS
+Some scanners (such as those which support "include" files)
+require reading from several input streams. As
+.I flex
+scanners do a large amount of buffering, one cannot control
+where the next input will be read from by simply writing a
+.B YY_INPUT
+which is sensitive to the scanning context.
+.B YY_INPUT
+is only called when the scanner reaches the end of its buffer, which
+may be a long time after scanning a statement such as an "include"
+which requires switching the input source.
+.PP
+To negotiate these sorts of problems,
+.I flex
+provides a mechanism for creating and switching between multiple
+input buffers. An input buffer is created by using:
+.nf
+
+ YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_create_buffer( FILE *file, int size )
+
+.fi
+which takes a
+.I FILE
+pointer and a size and creates a buffer associated with the given
+file and large enough to hold
+.I size
+characters (when in doubt, use
+.B YY_BUF_SIZE
+for the size). It returns a
+.B YY_BUFFER_STATE
+handle, which may then be passed to other routines:
+.nf
+
+ void yy_switch_to_buffer( YY_BUFFER_STATE new_buffer )
+
+.fi
+switches the scanner's input buffer so subsequent tokens will
+come from
+.I new_buffer.
+Note that
+.B yy_switch_to_buffer()
+may be used by yywrap() to set things up for continued scanning, instead
+of opening a new file and pointing
+.I yyin
+at it.
+.nf
+
+ void yy_delete_buffer( YY_BUFFER_STATE buffer )
+
+.fi
+is used to reclaim the storage associated with a buffer.
+.PP
+.B yy_new_buffer()
+is an alias for
+.B yy_create_buffer(),
+provided for compatibility with the C++ use of
+.I new
+and
+.I delete
+for creating and destroying dynamic objects.
+.PP
+Finally, the
+.B YY_CURRENT_BUFFER
+macro returns a
+.B YY_BUFFER_STATE
+handle to the current buffer.
+.PP
+Here is an example of using these features for writing a scanner
+which expands include files (the
+.B <<EOF>>
+feature is discussed below):
+.nf
+
+ /* the "incl" state is used for picking up the name
+ * of an include file
+ */
+ %x incl
+
+ %{
+ #define MAX_INCLUDE_DEPTH 10
+ YY_BUFFER_STATE include_stack[MAX_INCLUDE_DEPTH];
+ int include_stack_ptr = 0;
+ %}
+
+ %%
+ include BEGIN(incl);
+
+ [a-z]+ ECHO;
+ [^a-z\\n]*\\n? ECHO;
+
+ <incl>[ \\t]* /* eat the whitespace */
+ <incl>[^ \\t\\n]+ { /* got the include file name */
+ if ( include_stack_ptr >= MAX_INCLUDE_DEPTH )
+ {
+ fprintf( stderr, "Includes nested too deeply" );
+ exit( 1 );
+ }
+
+ include_stack[include_stack_ptr++] =
+ YY_CURRENT_BUFFER;
+
+ yyin = fopen( yytext, "r" );
+
+ if ( ! yyin )
+ error( ... );
+
+ yy_switch_to_buffer(
+ yy_create_buffer( yyin, YY_BUF_SIZE ) );
+
+ BEGIN(INITIAL);
+ }
+
+ <<EOF>> {
+ if ( --include_stack_ptr < 0 )
+ {
+ yyterminate();
+ }
+
+ else
+ {
+ yy_delete_buffer( YY_CURRENT_BUFFER );
+ yy_switch_to_buffer(
+ include_stack[include_stack_ptr] );
+ }
+ }
+
+.fi
+.SH END-OF-FILE RULES
+The special rule "<<EOF>>" indicates
+actions which are to be taken when an end-of-file is
+encountered and yywrap() returns non-zero (i.e., indicates
+no further files to process). The action must finish
+by doing one of four things:
+.IP -
+assigning
+.I yyin
+to a new input file (in previous versions of flex, after doing the
+assignment you had to call the special action
+.B YY_NEW_FILE;
+this is no longer necessary);
+.IP -
+executing a
+.I return
+statement;
+.IP -
+executing the special
+.B yyterminate()
+action;
+.IP -
+or, switching to a new buffer using
+.B yy_switch_to_buffer()
+as shown in the example above.
+.PP
+<<EOF>> rules may not be used with other
+patterns; they may only be qualified with a list of start
+conditions. If an unqualified <<EOF>> rule is given, it
+applies to
+.I all
+start conditions which do not already have <<EOF>> actions. To
+specify an <<EOF>> rule for only the initial start condition, use
+.nf
+
+ <INITIAL><<EOF>>
+
+.fi
+.PP
+These rules are useful for catching things like unclosed comments.
+An example:
+.nf
+
+ %x quote
+ %%
+
+ ...other rules for dealing with quotes...
+
+ <quote><<EOF>> {
+ error( "unterminated quote" );
+ yyterminate();
+ }
+ <<EOF>> {
+ if ( *++filelist )
+ yyin = fopen( *filelist, "r" );
+ else
+ yyterminate();
+ }
+
+.fi
+.SH MISCELLANEOUS MACROS
+The macro
+.bd
+YY_USER_ACTION
+can be defined to provide an action
+which is always executed prior to the matched rule's action. For example,
+it could be #define'd to call a routine to convert yytext to lower-case.
+.PP
+The macro
+.B YY_USER_INIT
+may be defined to provide an action which is always executed before
+the first scan (and before the scanner's internal initializations are done).
+For example, it could be used to call a routine to read
+in a data table or open a logging file.
+.PP
+In the generated scanner, the actions are all gathered in one large
+switch statement and separated using
+.B YY_BREAK,
+which may be redefined. By default, it is simply a "break", to separate
+each rule's action from the following rule's.
+Redefining
+.B YY_BREAK
+allows, for example, C++ users to
+#define YY_BREAK to do nothing (while being very careful that every
+rule ends with a "break" or a "return"!) to avoid suffering from
+unreachable statement warnings where because a rule's action ends with
+"return", the
+.B YY_BREAK
+is inaccessible.
+.SH INTERFACING WITH YACC
+One of the main uses of
+.I flex
+is as a companion to the
+.I yacc
+parser-generator.
+.I yacc
+parsers expect to call a routine named
+.B yylex()
+to find the next input token. The routine is supposed to
+return the type of the next token as well as putting any associated
+value in the global
+.B yylval.
+To use
+.I flex
+with
+.I yacc,
+one specifies the
+.B \-d
+option to
+.I yacc
+to instruct it to generate the file
+.B y.tab.h
+containing definitions of all the
+.B %tokens
+appearing in the
+.I yacc
+input. This file is then included in the
+.I flex
+scanner. For example, if one of the tokens is "TOK_NUMBER",
+part of the scanner might look like:
+.nf
+
+ %{
+ #include "y.tab.h"
+ %}
+
+ %%
+
+ [0-9]+ yylval = atoi( yytext ); return TOK_NUMBER;
+
+.fi
+.SH OPTIONS
+.I flex
+has the following options:
+.TP
+.B \-b
+Generate backing-up information to
+.I lex.backup.
+This is a list of scanner states which require backing up
+and the input characters on which they do so. By adding rules one
+can remove backing-up states. If all backing-up states
+are eliminated and
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+is used, the generated scanner will run faster (see the
+.B \-p
+flag). Only users who wish to squeeze every last cycle out of their
+scanners need worry about this option. (See the section on Performance
+Considerations below.)
+.TP
+.B \-c
+is a do-nothing, deprecated option included for POSIX compliance.
+.IP
+.B NOTE:
+in previous releases of
+.I flex
+.B \-c
+specified table-compression options. This functionality is
+now given by the
+.B \-C
+flag. To ease the the impact of this change, when
+.I flex
+encounters
+.B \-c,
+it currently issues a warning message and assumes that
+.B \-C
+was desired instead. In the future this "promotion" of
+.B \-c
+to
+.B \-C
+will go away in the name of full POSIX compliance (unless
+the POSIX meaning is removed first).
+.TP
+.B \-d
+makes the generated scanner run in
+.I debug
+mode. Whenever a pattern is recognized and the global
+.B yy_flex_debug
+is non-zero (which is the default),
+the scanner will write to
+.I stderr
+a line of the form:
+.nf
+
+ --accepting rule at line 53 ("the matched text")
+
+.fi
+The line number refers to the location of the rule in the file
+defining the scanner (i.e., the file that was fed to flex). Messages
+are also generated when the scanner backs up, accepts the
+default rule, reaches the end of its input buffer (or encounters
+a NUL; at this point, the two look the same as far as the scanner's concerned),
+or reaches an end-of-file.
+.TP
+.B \-f
+specifies
+.I fast scanner.
+No table compression is done and stdio is bypassed.
+The result is large but fast. This option is equivalent to
+.B \-Cfr
+(see below).
+.TP
+.B \-h
+generates a "help" summary of
+.I flex's
+options to
+.I stderr
+and then exits.
+.TP
+.B \-i
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a
+.I case-insensitive
+scanner. The case of letters given in the
+.I flex
+input patterns will
+be ignored, and tokens in the input will be matched regardless of case. The
+matched text given in
+.I yytext
+will have the preserved case (i.e., it will not be folded).
+.TP
+.B \-l
+turns on maximum compatibility with the original AT&T
+.I lex
+implementation. Note that this does not mean
+.I full
+compatibility. Use of this option costs a considerable amount of
+performance, and it cannot be used with the
+.B \-+, -f, -F, -Cf,
+or
+.B -CF
+options. For details on the compatibilities it provides, see the section
+"Incompatibilities With Lex And POSIX" below.
+.TP
+.B \-n
+is another do-nothing, deprecated option included only for
+POSIX compliance.
+.TP
+.B \-p
+generates a performance report to stderr. The report
+consists of comments regarding features of the
+.I flex
+input file which will cause a serious loss of performance in the resulting
+scanner. If you give the flag twice, you will also get comments regarding
+features that lead to minor performance losses.
+.IP
+Note that the use of
+.B REJECT
+and variable trailing context (see the Bugs section in flex(1))
+entails a substantial performance penalty; use of
+.I yymore(),
+the
+.B ^
+operator,
+and the
+.B \-I
+flag entail minor performance penalties.
+.TP
+.B \-s
+causes the
+.I default rule
+(that unmatched scanner input is echoed to
+.I stdout)
+to be suppressed. If the scanner encounters input that does not
+match any of its rules, it aborts with an error. This option is
+useful for finding holes in a scanner's rule set.
+.TP
+.B \-t
+instructs
+.I flex
+to write the scanner it generates to standard output instead
+of
+.B lex.yy.c.
+.TP
+.B \-v
+specifies that
+.I flex
+should write to
+.I stderr
+a summary of statistics regarding the scanner it generates.
+Most of the statistics are meaningless to the casual
+.I flex
+user, but the first line identifies the version of
+.I flex
+(same as reported by
+.B \-V),
+and the next line the flags used when generating the scanner, including
+those that are on by default.
+.TP
+.B \-w
+suppresses warning messages.
+.TP
+.B \-B
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a
+.I batch
+scanner, the opposite of
+.I interactive
+scanners generated by
+.B \-I
+(see below). In general, you use
+.B \-B
+when you are
+.I certain
+that your scanner will never be used interactively, and you want to
+squeeze a
+.I little
+more performance out of it. If your goal is instead to squeeze out a
+.I lot
+more performance, you should be using the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+options (discussed below), which turn on
+.B \-B
+automatically anyway.
+.TP
+.B \-F
+specifies that the
+.ul
+fast
+scanner table representation should be used (and stdio
+bypassed). This representation is
+about as fast as the full table representation
+.B (-f),
+and for some sets of patterns will be considerably smaller (and for
+others, larger). In general, if the pattern set contains both "keywords"
+and a catch-all, "identifier" rule, such as in the set:
+.nf
+
+ "case" return TOK_CASE;
+ "switch" return TOK_SWITCH;
+ ...
+ "default" return TOK_DEFAULT;
+ [a-z]+ return TOK_ID;
+
+.fi
+then you're better off using the full table representation. If only
+the "identifier" rule is present and you then use a hash table or some such
+to detect the keywords, you're better off using
+.B -F.
+.IP
+This option is equivalent to
+.B \-CFr
+(see below). It cannot be used with
+.B \-+.
+.TP
+.B \-I
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate an
+.I interactive
+scanner. An interactive scanner is one that only looks ahead to decide
+what token has been matched if it absolutely must. It turns out that
+always looking one extra character ahead, even if the scanner has already
+seen enough text to disambiguate the current token, is a bit faster than
+only looking ahead when necessary. But scanners that always look ahead
+give dreadful interactive performance; for example, when a user types
+a newline, it is not recognized as a newline token until they enter
+.I another
+token, which often means typing in another whole line.
+.IP
+.I Flex
+scanners default to
+.I interactive
+unless you use the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+table-compression options (see below). That's because if you're looking
+for high-performance you should be using one of these options, so if you
+didn't,
+.I flex
+assumes you'd rather trade off a bit of run-time performance for intuitive
+interactive behavior. Note also that you
+.I cannot
+use
+.B \-I
+in conjunction with
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF.
+Thus, this option is not really needed; it is on by default for all those
+cases in which it is allowed.
+.IP
+You can force a scanner to
+.I not
+be interactive by using
+.B \-B
+(see above).
+.TP
+.B \-L
+instructs
+.I flex
+not to generate
+.B #line
+directives. Without this option,
+.I flex
+peppers the generated scanner
+with #line directives so error messages in the actions will be correctly
+located with respect to the original
+.I flex
+input file, and not to
+the fairly meaningless line numbers of
+.B lex.yy.c.
+(Unfortunately
+.I flex
+does not presently generate the necessary directives
+to "retarget" the line numbers for those parts of
+.B lex.yy.c
+which it generated. So if there is an error in the generated code,
+a meaningless line number is reported.)
+.TP
+.B \-T
+makes
+.I flex
+run in
+.I trace
+mode. It will generate a lot of messages to
+.I stderr
+concerning
+the form of the input and the resultant non-deterministic and deterministic
+finite automata. This option is mostly for use in maintaining
+.I flex.
+.TP
+.B \-V
+prints the version number to
+.I stderr
+and exits.
+.TP
+.B \-7
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate a 7-bit scanner, i.e., one which can only recognized 7-bit
+characters in its input. The advantage of using
+.B \-7
+is that the scanner's tables can be up to half the size of those generated
+using the
+.B \-8
+option (see below). The disadvantage is that such scanners often hang
+or crash if their input contains an 8-bit character.
+.IP
+Note, however, that unless you generate your scanner using the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+table compression options, use of
+.B \-7
+will save only a small amount of table space, and make your scanner
+considerably less portable.
+.I Flex's
+default behavior is to generate an 8-bit scanner unless you use the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF,
+in which case
+.I flex
+defaults to generating 7-bit scanners unless your site was always
+configured to generate 8-bit scanners (as will often be the case
+with non-USA sites). You can tell whether flex generated a 7-bit
+or an 8-bit scanner by inspecting the flag summary in the
+.B \-v
+output as described above.
+.IP
+Note that if you use
+.B \-Cfe
+or
+.B \-CFe
+(those table compression options, but also using equivalence classes as
+discussed see below), flex still defaults to generating an 8-bit
+scanner, since usually with these compression options full 8-bit tables
+are not much more expensive than 7-bit tables.
+.TP
+.B \-8
+instructs
+.I flex
+to generate an 8-bit scanner, i.e., one which can recognize 8-bit
+characters. This flag is only needed for scanners generated using
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF,
+as otherwise flex defaults to generating an 8-bit scanner anyway.
+.IP
+See the discussion of
+.B \-7
+above for flex's default behavior and the tradeoffs between 7-bit
+and 8-bit scanners.
+.TP
+.B \-+
+specifies that you want flex to generate a C++
+scanner class. See the section on Generating C++ Scanners below for
+details.
+.TP
+.B \-C[aefFmr]
+controls the degree of table compression and, more generally, trade-offs
+between small scanners and fast scanners.
+.IP
+.B \-Ca
+("align") instructs flex to trade off larger tables in the
+generated scanner for faster performance because the elements of
+the tables are better aligned for memory access and computation. On some
+RISC architectures, fetching and manipulating longwords is more efficient
+than with smaller-sized datums such as shortwords. This option can
+double the size of the tables used by your scanner.
+.IP
+.B \-Ce
+directs
+.I flex
+to construct
+.I equivalence classes,
+i.e., sets of characters
+which have identical lexical properties (for example, if the only
+appearance of digits in the
+.I flex
+input is in the character class
+"[0-9]" then the digits '0', '1', ..., '9' will all be put
+in the same equivalence class). Equivalence classes usually give
+dramatic reductions in the final table/object file sizes (typically
+a factor of 2-5) and are pretty cheap performance-wise (one array
+look-up per character scanned).
+.IP
+.B \-Cf
+specifies that the
+.I full
+scanner tables should be generated -
+.I flex
+should not compress the
+tables by taking advantages of similar transition functions for
+different states.
+.IP
+.B \-CF
+specifies that the alternate fast scanner representation (described
+above under the
+.B \-F
+flag)
+should be used. This option cannot be used with
+.B \-+.
+.IP
+.B \-Cm
+directs
+.I flex
+to construct
+.I meta-equivalence classes,
+which are sets of equivalence classes (or characters, if equivalence
+classes are not being used) that are commonly used together. Meta-equivalence
+classes are often a big win when using compressed tables, but they
+have a moderate performance impact (one or two "if" tests and one
+array look-up per character scanned).
+.IP
+.B \-Cr
+causes the generated scanner to
+.I bypass
+use of the standard I/O library (stdio) for input. Instead of calling
+.B fread()
+or
+.B getc(),
+the scanner will use the
+.B read()
+system call, resulting in a performance gain which varies from system
+to system, but in general is probably negligible unless you are also using
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF.
+Using
+.B \-Cr
+can cause strange behavior if, for example, you read from
+.I yyin
+using stdio prior to calling the scanner (because the scanner will miss
+whatever text your previous reads left in the stdio input buffer).
+.IP
+.B \-Cr
+has no effect if you define
+.B YY_INPUT
+(see The Generated Scanner above).
+.IP
+A lone
+.B \-C
+specifies that the scanner tables should be compressed but neither
+equivalence classes nor meta-equivalence classes should be used.
+.IP
+The options
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+and
+.B \-Cm
+do not make sense together - there is no opportunity for meta-equivalence
+classes if the table is not being compressed. Otherwise the options
+may be freely mixed, and are cumulative.
+.IP
+The default setting is
+.B \-Cem,
+which specifies that
+.I flex
+should generate equivalence classes
+and meta-equivalence classes. This setting provides the highest
+degree of table compression. You can trade off
+faster-executing scanners at the cost of larger tables with
+the following generally being true:
+.nf
+
+ slowest & smallest
+ -Cem
+ -Cm
+ -Ce
+ -C
+ -C{f,F}e
+ -C{f,F}
+ -C{f,F}a
+ fastest & largest
+
+.fi
+Note that scanners with the smallest tables are usually generated and
+compiled the quickest, so
+during development you will usually want to use the default, maximal
+compression.
+.IP
+.B \-Cfe
+is often a good compromise between speed and size for production
+scanners.
+.TP
+.B \-Pprefix
+changes the default
+.I "yy"
+prefix used by
+.I flex
+for all globally-visible variable and function names to instead be
+.I prefix.
+For example,
+.B \-Pfoo
+changes the name of
+.B yytext
+to
+.B footext.
+It also changes the name of the default output file from
+.B lex.yy.c
+to
+.B lex.foo.c.
+Here are all of the names affected:
+.nf
+
+ yyFlexLexer
+ yy_create_buffer
+ yy_delete_buffer
+ yy_flex_debug
+ yy_init_buffer
+ yy_load_buffer_state
+ yy_switch_to_buffer
+ yyin
+ yyleng
+ yylex
+ yyout
+ yyrestart
+ yytext
+ yywrap
+
+.fi
+Within your scanner itself, you can still refer to the global variables
+and functions using either version of their name; but eternally, they
+have the modified name.
+.IP
+This option lets you easily link together multiple
+.I flex
+programs into the same executable. Note, though, that using this
+option also renames
+.B yywrap(),
+so you now
+.I must
+provide your own (appropriately-named) version of the routine for your
+scanner, as linking with
+.B \-lfl
+no longer provides one for you by default.
+.TP
+.B \-Sskeleton_file
+overrides the default skeleton file from which
+.I flex
+constructs its scanners. You'll never need this option unless you are doing
+.I flex
+maintenance or development.
+.SH PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS
+The main design goal of
+.I flex
+is that it generate high-performance scanners. It has been optimized
+for dealing well with large sets of rules. Aside from the effects on
+scanner speed of the table compression
+.B \-C
+options outlined above,
+there are a number of options/actions which degrade performance. These
+are, from most expensive to least:
+.nf
+
+ REJECT
+
+ pattern sets that require backing up
+ arbitrary trailing context
+
+ yymore()
+ '^' beginning-of-line operator
+
+.fi
+with the first three all being quite expensive and the last two
+being quite cheap. Note also that
+.B unput()
+is implemented as a routine call that potentially does quite a bit of
+work, while
+.B yyless()
+is a quite-cheap macro; so if just putting back some excess text you
+scanned, use
+.B yyless().
+.PP
+.B REJECT
+should be avoided at all costs when performance is important.
+It is a particularly expensive option.
+.PP
+Getting rid of backing up is messy and often may be an enormous
+amount of work for a complicated scanner. In principal, one begins
+by using the
+.B \-b
+flag to generate a
+.I lex.backup
+file. For example, on the input
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ foo return TOK_KEYWORD;
+ foobar return TOK_KEYWORD;
+
+.fi
+the file looks like:
+.nf
+
+ State #6 is non-accepting -
+ associated rule line numbers:
+ 2 3
+ out-transitions: [ o ]
+ jam-transitions: EOF [ \\001-n p-\\177 ]
+
+ State #8 is non-accepting -
+ associated rule line numbers:
+ 3
+ out-transitions: [ a ]
+ jam-transitions: EOF [ \\001-` b-\\177 ]
+
+ State #9 is non-accepting -
+ associated rule line numbers:
+ 3
+ out-transitions: [ r ]
+ jam-transitions: EOF [ \\001-q s-\\177 ]
+
+ Compressed tables always back up.
+
+.fi
+The first few lines tell us that there's a scanner state in
+which it can make a transition on an 'o' but not on any other
+character, and that in that state the currently scanned text does not match
+any rule. The state occurs when trying to match the rules found
+at lines 2 and 3 in the input file.
+If the scanner is in that state and then reads
+something other than an 'o', it will have to back up to find
+a rule which is matched. With
+a bit of headscratching one can see that this must be the
+state it's in when it has seen "fo". When this has happened,
+if anything other than another 'o' is seen, the scanner will
+have to back up to simply match the 'f' (by the default rule).
+.PP
+The comment regarding State #8 indicates there's a problem
+when "foob" has been scanned. Indeed, on any character other
+than an 'a', the scanner will have to back up to accept "foo".
+Similarly, the comment for State #9 concerns when "fooba" has
+been scanned and an 'r' does not follow.
+.PP
+The final comment reminds us that there's no point going to
+all the trouble of removing backing up from the rules unless
+we're using
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF,
+since there's no performance gain doing so with compressed scanners.
+.PP
+The way to remove the backing up is to add "error" rules:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ foo return TOK_KEYWORD;
+ foobar return TOK_KEYWORD;
+
+ fooba |
+ foob |
+ fo {
+ /* false alarm, not really a keyword */
+ return TOK_ID;
+ }
+
+.fi
+.PP
+Eliminating backing up among a list of keywords can also be
+done using a "catch-all" rule:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ foo return TOK_KEYWORD;
+ foobar return TOK_KEYWORD;
+
+ [a-z]+ return TOK_ID;
+
+.fi
+This is usually the best solution when appropriate.
+.PP
+Backing up messages tend to cascade.
+With a complicated set of rules it's not uncommon to get hundreds
+of messages. If one can decipher them, though, it often
+only takes a dozen or so rules to eliminate the backing up (though
+it's easy to make a mistake and have an error rule accidentally match
+a valid token. A possible future
+.I flex
+feature will be to automatically add rules to eliminate backing up).
+.PP
+.I Variable
+trailing context (where both the leading and trailing parts do not have
+a fixed length) entails almost the same performance loss as
+.B REJECT
+(i.e., substantial). So when possible a rule like:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ mouse|rat/(cat|dog) run();
+
+.fi
+is better written:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ mouse/cat|dog run();
+ rat/cat|dog run();
+
+.fi
+or as
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ mouse|rat/cat run();
+ mouse|rat/dog run();
+
+.fi
+Note that here the special '|' action does
+.I not
+provide any savings, and can even make things worse (see
+.PP
+A final note regarding performance: as mentioned above in the section
+How the Input is Matched, dynamically resizing
+.B yytext
+to accomodate huge tokens is a slow process because it presently requires that
+the (huge) token be rescanned from the beginning. Thus if performance is
+vital, you should attempt to match "large" quantities of text but not
+"huge" quantities, where the cutoff between the two is at about 8K
+characters/token.
+.PP
+Another area where the user can increase a scanner's performance
+(and one that's easier to implement) arises from the fact that
+the longer the tokens matched, the faster the scanner will run.
+This is because with long tokens the processing of most input
+characters takes place in the (short) inner scanning loop, and
+does not often have to go through the additional work of setting up
+the scanning environment (e.g.,
+.B yytext)
+for the action. Recall the scanner for C comments:
+.nf
+
+ %x comment
+ %%
+ int line_num = 1;
+
+ "/*" BEGIN(comment);
+
+ <comment>[^*\\n]*
+ <comment>"*"+[^*/\\n]*
+ <comment>\\n ++line_num;
+ <comment>"*"+"/" BEGIN(INITIAL);
+
+.fi
+This could be sped up by writing it as:
+.nf
+
+ %x comment
+ %%
+ int line_num = 1;
+
+ "/*" BEGIN(comment);
+
+ <comment>[^*\\n]*
+ <comment>[^*\\n]*\\n ++line_num;
+ <comment>"*"+[^*/\\n]*
+ <comment>"*"+[^*/\\n]*\\n ++line_num;
+ <comment>"*"+"/" BEGIN(INITIAL);
+
+.fi
+Now instead of each newline requiring the processing of another
+action, recognizing the newlines is "distributed" over the other rules
+to keep the matched text as long as possible. Note that
+.I adding
+rules does
+.I not
+slow down the scanner! The speed of the scanner is independent
+of the number of rules or (modulo the considerations given at the
+beginning of this section) how complicated the rules are with
+regard to operators such as '*' and '|'.
+.PP
+A final example in speeding up a scanner: suppose you want to scan
+through a file containing identifiers and keywords, one per line
+and with no other extraneous characters, and recognize all the
+keywords. A natural first approach is:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ asm |
+ auto |
+ break |
+ ... etc ...
+ volatile |
+ while /* it's a keyword */
+
+ .|\\n /* it's not a keyword */
+
+.fi
+To eliminate the back-tracking, introduce a catch-all rule:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ asm |
+ auto |
+ break |
+ ... etc ...
+ volatile |
+ while /* it's a keyword */
+
+ [a-z]+ |
+ .|\\n /* it's not a keyword */
+
+.fi
+Now, if it's guaranteed that there's exactly one word per line,
+then we can reduce the total number of matches by a half by
+merging in the recognition of newlines with that of the other
+tokens:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ asm\\n |
+ auto\\n |
+ break\\n |
+ ... etc ...
+ volatile\\n |
+ while\\n /* it's a keyword */
+
+ [a-z]+\\n |
+ .|\\n /* it's not a keyword */
+
+.fi
+One has to be careful here, as we have now reintroduced backing up
+into the scanner. In particular, while
+.I we
+know that there will never be any characters in the input stream
+other than letters or newlines,
+.I flex
+can't figure this out, and it will plan for possibly needing to back up
+when it has scanned a token like "auto" and then the next character
+is something other than a newline or a letter. Previously it would
+then just match the "auto" rule and be done, but now it has no "auto"
+rule, only a "auto\\n" rule. To eliminate the possibility of backing up,
+we could either duplicate all rules but without final newlines, or,
+since we never expect to encounter such an input and therefore don't
+how it's classified, we can introduce one more catch-all rule, this
+one which doesn't include a newline:
+.nf
+
+ %%
+ asm\\n |
+ auto\\n |
+ break\\n |
+ ... etc ...
+ volatile\\n |
+ while\\n /* it's a keyword */
+
+ [a-z]+\\n |
+ [a-z]+ |
+ .|\\n /* it's not a keyword */
+
+.fi
+Compiled with
+.B \-Cf,
+this is about as fast as one can get a
+.I flex
+scanner to go for this particular problem.
+.PP
+A final note:
+.I flex
+is slow when matching NUL's, particularly when a token contains
+multiple NUL's.
+It's best to write rules which match
+.I short
+amounts of text if it's anticipated that the text will often include NUL's.
+.SH GENERATING C++ SCANNERS
+.I flex
+provides two different ways to generate scanners for use with C++. The
+first way is to simply compile a scanner generated by
+.I flex
+using a C++ compiler instead of a C compiler. You should not encounter
+any compilations errors (please report any you find to the email address
+given in the Author section below). You can then use C++ code in your
+rule actions instead of C code. Note that the default input source for
+your scanner remains
+.I yyin,
+and default echoing is still done to
+.I yyout.
+Both of these remain
+.I FILE *
+variables and not C++
+.I streams.
+.PP
+You can also use
+.I flex
+to generate a C++ scanner class, using the
+.B \-+
+option, which is automatically specified if the name of the flex
+executable ends in a '+', such as
+.I flex++.
+When using this option, flex defaults to generating the scanner to the file
+.B lex.yy.cc
+instead of
+.B lex.yy.c.
+The generated scanner includes the header file
+.I FlexLexer.h,
+which defines the interface to two C++ classes.
+.PP
+The first class,
+.B FlexLexer,
+provides an abstract base class defining the general scanner class
+interface. It provides the following member functions:
+.TP
+.B const char* YYText()
+returns the text of the most recently matched token, the equivalent of
+.B yytext.
+.TP
+.B int YYLeng()
+returns the length of the most recently matched token, the equivalent of
+.B yyleng.
+.PP
+Also provided are member functions equivalent to
+.B yy_switch_to_buffer(),
+.B yy_create_buffer()
+(though the first argument is an
+.B istream*
+object pointer and not a
+.B FILE*),
+.B yy_delete_buffer(),
+and
+.B yyrestart()
+(again, the first argument is a
+.B istream*
+object pointer).
+.PP
+The second class defined in
+.I FlexLexer.h
+is
+.B yyFlexLexer,
+which is derived from
+.B FlexLexer.
+It defines the following additional member functions:
+.TP
+.B
+yyFlexLexer( istream* arg_yyin = 0, ostream* arg_yyout = 0 )
+constructs a
+.B yyFlexLexer
+object using the given streams for input and output. If not specified,
+the streams default to
+.B cin
+and
+.B cout,
+respectively.
+.TP
+.B virtual int yylex()
+performs the same role is
+.B yylex()
+does for ordinary flex scanners: it scans the input stream, consuming
+tokens, until a rule's action returns a value.
+.PP
+In addition,
+.B yyFlexLexer
+defines the following protected virtual functions which you can redefine
+in derived classes to tailor the scanner:
+.TP
+.B
+virtual int LexerInput( char* buf, int max_size )
+reads up to
+.B max_size
+characters into
+.B buf
+and returns the number of characters read. To indicate end-of-input,
+return 0 characters. Note that "interactive" scanners (see the
+.B \-B
+and
+.B \-I
+flags) define the macro
+.B YY_INTERACTIVE.
+If you redefine
+.B LexerInput()
+and need to take different actions depending on whether or not
+the scanner might be scanning an interactive input source, you can
+test for the presence of this name via
+.B #ifdef.
+.TP
+.B
+virtual void LexerOutput( const char* buf, int size )
+writes out
+.B size
+characters from the buffer
+.B buf,
+which, while NUL-terminated, may also contain "internal" NUL's if
+the scanner's rules can match text with NUL's in them.
+.TP
+.B
+virtual void LexerError( const char* msg )
+reports a fatal error message. The default version of this function
+writes the message to the stream
+.B cerr
+and exits.
+.PP
+Note that a
+.B yyFlexLexer
+object contains its
+.I entire
+scanning state. Thus you can use such objects to create reentrant
+scanners. You can instantiate multiple instances of the same
+.B yyFlexLexer
+class, and you can also combine multiple C++ scanner classes together
+in the same program using the
+.B \-P
+option discussed above.
+.PP
+Finally, note that the
+.B %array
+feature is not available to C++ scanner classes; you must use
+.B %pointer
+(the default).
+.PP
+Here is an example of a simple C++ scanner:
+.nf
+
+ // An example of using the flex C++ scanner class.
+
+ %{
+ int mylineno = 0;
+ %}
+
+ string \\"[^\\n"]+\\"
+
+ ws [ \\t]+
+
+ alpha [A-Za-z]
+ dig [0-9]
+ name ({alpha}|{dig}|\\$)({alpha}|{dig}|[_.\\-/$])*
+ num1 [-+]?{dig}+\\.?([eE][-+]?{dig}+)?
+ num2 [-+]?{dig}*\\.{dig}+([eE][-+]?{dig}+)?
+ number {num1}|{num2}
+
+ %%
+
+ {ws} /* skip blanks and tabs */
+
+ "/*" {
+ int c;
+
+ while((c = yyinput()) != 0)
+ {
+ if(c == '\\n')
+ ++mylineno;
+
+ else if(c == '*')
+ {
+ if((c = yyinput()) == '/')
+ break;
+ else
+ unput(c);
+ }
+ }
+ }
+
+ {number} cout << "number " << YYText() << '\\n';
+
+ \\n mylineno++;
+
+ {name} cout << "name " << YYText() << '\\n';
+
+ {string} cout << "string " << YYText() << '\\n';
+
+ %%
+
+ int main( int /* argc */, char** /* argv */ )
+ {
+ FlexLexer* lexer = new yyFlexLexer;
+ while(lexer->yylex() != 0)
+ ;
+ return 0;
+ }
+.fi
+IMPORTANT: the present form of the scanning class is
+.I experimental
+and may change considerably between major releases.
+.SH INCOMPATIBILITIES WITH LEX AND POSIX
+.I flex
+is a rewrite of the AT&T Unix
+.I lex
+tool (the two implementations do not share any code, though),
+with some extensions and incompatibilities, both of which
+are of concern to those who wish to write scanners acceptable
+to either implementation. The POSIX
+.I lex
+specification is closer to
+.I flex's
+behavior than that of the original
+.I lex
+implementation, but there also remain some incompatibilities between
+.I flex
+and POSIX. The intent is that ultimately
+.I flex
+will be fully POSIX-conformant. In this section we discuss all of
+the known areas of incompatibility.
+.PP
+.I flex's
+.B \-l
+option turns on maximum compatibility with the original AT&T
+.I lex
+implementation, at the cost of a major loss in the generated scanner's
+performance. We note below which incompatibilities can be overcome
+using the
+.B \-l
+option.
+.PP
+.I flex
+is fully compatible with
+.I lex
+with the following exceptions:
+.IP -
+The undocumented
+.I lex
+scanner internal variable
+.B yylineno
+is not supported unless
+.B \-l
+is used.
+.IP
+yylineno is not part of the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+The
+.B input()
+routine is not redefinable, though it may be called to read characters
+following whatever has been matched by a rule. If
+.B input()
+encounters an end-of-file the normal
+.B yywrap()
+processing is done. A ``real'' end-of-file is returned by
+.B input()
+as
+.I EOF.
+.IP
+Input is instead controlled by defining the
+.B YY_INPUT
+macro.
+.IP
+The
+.I flex
+restriction that
+.B input()
+cannot be redefined is in accordance with the POSIX specification,
+which simply does not specify any way of controlling the
+scanner's input other than by making an initial assignment to
+.I yyin.
+.IP -
+.I flex
+scanners are not as reentrant as
+.I lex
+scanners. In particular, if you have an interactive scanner and
+an interrupt handler which long-jumps out of the scanner, and
+the scanner is subsequently called again, you may get the following
+message:
+.nf
+
+ fatal flex scanner internal error--end of buffer missed
+
+.fi
+To reenter the scanner, first use
+.nf
+
+ yyrestart( yyin );
+
+.fi
+Note that this call will throw away any buffered input; usually this
+isn't a problem with an interactive scanner.
+.IP
+Also note that flex C++ scanner classes
+.I are
+reentrant, so if using C++ is an option for you, you should use
+them instead. See "Generating C++ Scanners" above for details.
+.IP -
+.B output()
+is not supported.
+Output from the
+.B ECHO
+macro is done to the file-pointer
+.I yyout
+(default
+.I stdout).
+.IP
+.B output()
+is not part of the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+.I lex
+does not support exclusive start conditions (%x), though they
+are in the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+When definitions are expanded,
+.I flex
+encloses them in parentheses.
+With lex, the following:
+.nf
+
+ NAME [A-Z][A-Z0-9]*
+ %%
+ foo{NAME}? printf( "Found it\\n" );
+ %%
+
+.fi
+will not match the string "foo" because when the macro
+is expanded the rule is equivalent to "foo[A-Z][A-Z0-9]*?"
+and the precedence is such that the '?' is associated with
+"[A-Z0-9]*". With
+.I flex,
+the rule will be expanded to
+"foo([A-Z][A-Z0-9]*)?" and so the string "foo" will match.
+.IP
+Note that if the definition begins with
+.B ^
+or ends with
+.B $
+then it is
+.I not
+expanded with parentheses, to allow these operators to appear in
+definitions without losing their special meanings. But the
+.B <s>, /,
+and
+.B <<EOF>>
+operators cannot be used in a
+.I flex
+definition.
+.IP
+Using
+.B \-l
+results in the
+.I lex
+behavior of no parentheses around the definition.
+.IP
+The POSIX specification is that the definition be enclosed in parentheses.
+.IP -
+The
+.I lex
+.B %r
+(generate a Ratfor scanner) option is not supported. It is not part
+of the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+After a call to
+.B unput(),
+.I yytext
+and
+.I yyleng
+are undefined until the next token is matched, unless the scanner
+was built using
+.B %array.
+This is not the case with
+.I lex
+or the POSIX specification. The
+.B \-l
+option does away with this incompatibility.
+.IP -
+The precedence of the
+.B {}
+(numeric range) operator is different.
+.I lex
+interprets "abc{1,3}" as "match one, two, or
+three occurrences of 'abc'", whereas
+.I flex
+interprets it as "match 'ab'
+followed by one, two, or three occurrences of 'c'". The latter is
+in agreement with the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+The precedence of the
+.B ^
+operator is different.
+.I lex
+interprets "^foo|bar" as "match either 'foo' at the beginning of a line,
+or 'bar' anywhere", whereas
+.I flex
+interprets it as "match either 'foo' or 'bar' if they come at the beginning
+of a line". The latter is in agreement with the POSIX specification.
+.IP -
+.I yyin
+is
+.I initialized
+by
+.I lex
+to be
+.I stdin;
+.I flex,
+on the other hand,
+initializes
+.I yyin
+to NULL
+and then
+.I assigns
+it to
+.I stdin
+the first time the scanner is called, providing
+.I yyin
+has not already been assigned to a non-NULL value. The difference is
+subtle, but the net effect is that with
+.I flex
+scanners,
+.I yyin
+does not have a valid value until the scanner has been called.
+.IP
+The
+.B \-l
+option does away with this incompatibility.
+.IP -
+The special table-size declarations such as
+.B %a
+supported by
+.I lex
+are not required by
+.I flex
+scanners;
+.I flex
+ignores them.
+.IP -
+The name
+.bd
+FLEX_SCANNER
+is #define'd so scanners may be written for use with either
+.I flex
+or
+.I lex.
+.PP
+The following
+.I flex
+features are not included in
+.I lex
+or the POSIX specification:
+.nf
+
+ yyterminate()
+ <<EOF>>
+ <*>
+ YY_DECL
+ YY_START
+ YY_USER_ACTION
+ #line directives
+ %{}'s around actions
+ multiple actions on a line
+
+.fi
+plus almost all of the flex flags.
+The last feature in the list refers to the fact that with
+.I flex
+you can put multiple actions on the same line, separated with
+semi-colons, while with
+.I lex,
+the following
+.nf
+
+ foo handle_foo(); ++num_foos_seen;
+
+.fi
+is (rather surprisingly) truncated to
+.nf
+
+ foo handle_foo();
+
+.fi
+.I flex
+does not truncate the action. Actions that are not enclosed in
+braces are simply terminated at the end of the line.
+.SH DIAGNOSTICS
+.PP
+.I warning, rule cannot be matched
+indicates that the given rule
+cannot be matched because it follows other rules that will
+always match the same text as it. For
+example, in the following "foo" cannot be matched because it comes after
+an identifier "catch-all" rule:
+.nf
+
+ [a-z]+ got_identifier();
+ foo got_foo();
+
+.fi
+Using
+.B REJECT
+in a scanner suppresses this warning.
+.PP
+.I warning,
+.B \-s
+.I
+option given but default rule can be matched
+means that it is possible (perhaps only in a particular start condition)
+that the default rule (match any single character) is the only one
+that will match a particular input. Since
+.B \-s
+was given, presumably this is not intended.
+.PP
+.I reject_used_but_not_detected undefined
+or
+.I yymore_used_but_not_detected undefined -
+These errors can occur at compile time. They indicate that the
+scanner uses
+.B REJECT
+or
+.B yymore()
+but that
+.I flex
+failed to notice the fact, meaning that
+.I flex
+scanned the first two sections looking for occurrences of these actions
+and failed to find any, but somehow you snuck some in (via a #include
+file, for example). Make an explicit reference to the action in your
+.I flex
+input file. (Note that previously
+.I flex
+supported a
+.B %used/%unused
+mechanism for dealing with this problem; this feature is still supported
+but now deprecated, and will go away soon unless the author hears from
+people who can argue compellingly that they need it.)
+.PP
+.I flex scanner jammed -
+a scanner compiled with
+.B \-s
+has encountered an input string which wasn't matched by
+any of its rules. This error can also occur due to internal problems.
+.PP
+.I token too large, exceeds YYLMAX -
+your scanner uses
+.B %array
+and one of its rules matched a string longer than the
+.B YYLMAX
+constant (8K bytes by default). You can increase the value by
+#define'ing
+.B YYLMAX
+in the definitions section of your
+.I flex
+input.
+.PP
+.I scanner requires \-8 flag to
+.I use the character 'x' -
+Your scanner specification includes recognizing the 8-bit character
+.I 'x'
+and you did not specify the \-8 flag, and your scanner defaulted to 7-bit
+because you used the
+.B \-Cf
+or
+.B \-CF
+table compression options. See the discussion of the
+.B \-7
+flag for details.
+.PP
+.I flex scanner push-back overflow -
+you used
+.B unput()
+to push back so much text that the scanner's buffer could not hold
+both the pushed-back text and the current token in
+.B yytext.
+Ideally the scanner should dynamically resize the buffer in this case, but at
+present it does not.
+.PP
+.I
+input buffer overflow, can't enlarge buffer because scanner uses REJECT -
+the scanner was working on matching an extremely large token and needed
+to expand the input buffer. This doesn't work with scanners that use
+.B
+REJECT.
+.PP
+.I
+fatal flex scanner internal error--end of buffer missed -
+This can occur in an scanner which is reentered after a long-jump
+has jumped out (or over) the scanner's activation frame. Before
+reentering the scanner, use:
+.nf
+
+ yyrestart( yyin );
+
+.fi
+or, as noted above, switch to using the C++ scanner class.
+.PP
+.I too many start conditions in <> construct! -
+you listed more start conditions in a <> construct than exist (so
+you must have listed at least one of them twice).
+.SH FILES
+See flex(1).
+.SH DEFICIENCIES / BUGS
+Again, see flex(1).
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.PP
+flex(1), lex(1), yacc(1), sed(1), awk(1).
+.PP
+M. E. Lesk and E. Schmidt,
+.I LEX \- Lexical Analyzer Generator
+.SH AUTHOR
+Vern Paxson, with the help of many ideas and much inspiration from
+Van Jacobson. Original version by Jef Poskanzer. The fast table
+representation is a partial implementation of a design done by Van
+Jacobson. The implementation was done by Kevin Gong and Vern Paxson.
+.PP
+Thanks to the many
+.I flex
+beta-testers, feedbackers, and contributors, especially Francois Pinard,
+Casey Leedom,
+Nelson H.F. Beebe, benson@odi.com, Peter A. Bigot, Keith Bostic, Frederic
+Brehm, Nick Christopher, Jason Coughlin, Bill Cox, Dave Curtis, Scott David
+Daniels, Chris G. Demetriou, Mike Donahue, Chuck Doucette, Tom Epperly, Leo
+Eskin, Chris Faylor, Jon Forrest, Kaveh R. Ghazi,
+Eric Goldman, Ulrich Grepel, Jan Hajic,
+Jarkko Hietaniemi, Eric Hughes, John Interrante,
+Ceriel Jacobs, Jeffrey R. Jones, Henry
+Juengst, Amir Katz, ken@ken.hilco.com, Kevin B. Kenny, Marq Kole, Ronald
+Lamprecht, Greg Lee, Craig Leres, John Levine, Steve Liddle,
+Mohamed el Lozy, Brian Madsen, Chris
+Metcalf, Luke Mewburn, Jim Meyering, G.T. Nicol, Landon Noll, Marc Nozell,
+Richard Ohnemus, Sven Panne, Roland Pesch, Walter Pelissero, Gaumond
+Pierre, Esmond Pitt, Jef Poskanzer, Joe Rahmeh, Frederic Raimbault,
+Rick Richardson,
+Kevin Rodgers, Jim Roskind,
+Doug Schmidt, Philippe Schnoebelen, Andreas Schwab,
+Alex Siegel, Mike Stump, Paul Stuart, Dave Tallman, Chris Thewalt,
+Paul Tuinenga, Gary Weik, Frank Whaley, Gerhard Wilhelms, Kent Williams, Ken
+Yap, Nathan Zelle, David Zuhn, and those whose names have slipped my marginal
+mail-archiving skills but whose contributions are appreciated all the
+same.
+.PP
+Thanks to Keith Bostic, Jon Forrest, Noah Friedman,
+John Gilmore, Craig Leres, John Levine, Bob Mulcahy, G.T.
+Nicol, Francois Pinard, Rich Salz, and Richard Stallman for help with various
+distribution headaches.
+.PP
+Thanks to Esmond Pitt and Earle Horton for 8-bit character support; to
+Benson Margulies and Fred Burke for C++ support; to Kent Williams and Tom
+Epperly for C++ class support; to Ove Ewerlid for support of NUL's; and to
+Eric Hughes for support of multiple buffers.
+.PP
+This work was primarily done when I was with the Real Time Systems Group
+at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, CA. Many thanks to all there
+for the support I received.
+.PP
+Send comments to:
+.nf
+
+ Vern Paxson
+ Systems Engineering
+ Bldg. 46A, Room 1123
+ Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
+ University of California
+ Berkeley, CA 94720
+
+ vern@ee.lbl.gov
+
+.fi
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