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From: bet@ecsvax.UUCP (Bennett E. Todd III)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: lex and yacc in the public domain (responses)
Message-ID: <1435@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Apr-86 16:10:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1435
Posted: Thu Apr 17 16:10:05 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Apr-86 01:44:52 EST
References: <481@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> <342@uvacs.UUCP> <438@mips.UUCP>
Reply-To: bet@ecsvax.UUCP (Bennett E. Todd III)
Distribution: net
Organization: Duke University Computation Center
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Someone mentioned wart, which is available free as part of the Columbia
University C-Kermit distribution, as a possible replacement for lex(1).
I thought so too from a first quick glance; when I looked at it more
closely I was disabused of that impression. WART is a finite state
automaton generator, ideal for specifying the state machine to implement
the KERMIT protocol. It is a fine program for what it is designed for,
but it wasn't designed for lexical analysis. The input file
specification is deliberately like that of lex(1); you can use lex(1)
instead of wart. However, where lex(1) files can contain regular
expressions (which lex(1) will compile into recognizers) wart only
matches on single characters. So sad; I had hopes there. Anybody got a
PD lex(1)?
-Bennett
-- 

Bennett Todd -- Duke Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706-7756; (919) 684-3695
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