Lex (software)

Lex is a computer program that generates lexical analyzers ("scanners" or "lexers").[1][2]

Lex is commonly used with the yacc parser generator. Lex, originally written by Mike Lesk and Eric Schmidt[3] and described in 1975,[4][5] is the standard lexical analyzer generator on many Unix systems, and an equivalent tool is specified as part of the POSIX standard.

Lex reads an input stream specifying the lexical analyzer and outputs source code implementing the lexer in the C programming language.

Open source

Though originally distributed as proprietary software, some versions of Lex are now open source. Open source versions of Lex, based on the original AT&T code are now distributed as open source systems such as OpenSolaris and Plan 9 from Bell Labs. One popular open source version of Lex, called flex, or the "fast lexical analyzer", is not derived from proprietary code.

Structure of a Lex file

The structure of a Lex file is intentionally similar to that of a yacc file; files are divided into three sections, separated by lines that contain only two percent signs, as follows:

Definition section
%%
Rules section
%%
C code section

Example of a Lex file

The following is an example Lex file for the flex version of Lex. It recognizes strings of numbers (positive integers) in the input, and simply prints them out.

/*** Definition section ***/

%{
/* C code to be copied verbatim */
#include <stdio.h>
%}

/* This tells flex to read only one input file */
%option noyywrap

%%
    /*** Rules section ***/

    /* [0-9]+ matches a string of one or more digits */
[0-9]+  {
            /* yytext is a string containing the matched text. */
            printf("Saw an integer: %s\n", yytext);
        }

.|\n    {   /* Ignore all other characters. */   }

%%
/*** C Code section ***/

int main(void)
{
    /* Call the lexer, then quit. */
    yylex();
    return 0;
}

If this input is given to flex, it will be converted into a C file, lex.yy.c. This can be compiled into an executable which matches and outputs strings of integers. For example, given the input:

abc123z.!&*2gj6

the program will print:

Saw an integer: 123
Saw an integer: 2
Saw an integer: 6

Using Lex with other programming tools

Using Lex with parser generators

Lex and parser generators, such as Yacc or Bison, are commonly used together. Parser generators use a formal grammar to parse an input stream, something which Lex cannot do using simple regular expressions (Lex is limited to simple finite state automata).

It is typically preferable to have a (Yacc-generated, say) parser be fed a token-stream as input, rather than having it consume the input character-stream directly. Lex is often used to produce such a token-stream.

Scannerless parsing refers to parsing the input character-stream directly, without a distinct lexer.

Lex and make

make is a utility that can be used to maintain programs involving Lex. Make assumes that a file that has an extension of .l is a Lex source file. The make internal macro LFLAGS can be used to specify Lex options to be invoked automatically by make.[6]

See also

References

  1. Levine, John R.; Mason, Tony; Brown, Doug (1992). lex & yacc (2 ed.). O'Reilly. pp. 1–2. ISBN 1-56592-000-7.
  2. Levine, John (August 2009). flex & bison. O'Reilly Media. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-596-15597-1.
  3. Lesk, M.E.; Schmidt, E. "Lex – A Lexical Analyzer Generator". Retrieved August 16, 2010.
  4. Lesk, M.E.; Schmidt, E. (July 21, 1975). "Lex – A Lexical Analyzer Generator" (PDF). UNIX TIME-SHARING SYSTEM:UNIX PROGRAMMER’S MANUAL, Seventh Edition, Volume 2B. bell-labs.com. Retrieved Dec 20, 2011.
  5. Lesk, M.E. (October 1975). "Lex – A Lexical Analyzer Generator". Comp. Sci. Tech. Rep. No. 39. Murray Hill, New Jersey: Bell Laboratories.
  6. "make". The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition. The IEEE and The Open Group. 2004

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/21/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.