[TUHS] v7 K&R C [really lexers]

Nelson H. F. Beebe beebe at math.utah.edu
Sun May 17 12:07:24 AEST 2020


Brantley Coile <brantley at coraid.com> wrote on Sun, 17 May 2020 01:36:16 +0000:

>> It looks like only grap and pic have mkfiles that invoke lex.

Both of those are Brian Kernighan's work, and from the FIXES file
in his nawk, I can offer this quote:

>> ...
>> Aug 9, 1997:
>> 	somewhat regretfully, replaced the ancient lex-based lexical
>> 	analyzer with one written in C.  it's longer, generates less code,
>> 	and more portable; the old one depended too much on mysterious
>> 	properties of lex that were not preserved in other environments.
>> 	in theory these recognize the same language.
>> ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


More information about the TUHS mailing list