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From: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Flex fast lexical analyzer for MPW announcement.
Keywords: %Globaldata Sucks Wind.
Message-ID: <8534@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 22 May 88 03:29:48 GMT
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 21


     I have Flex, the lex replacement which was recently posted to
comp.sources.unix, successfully ported to Macintosh Programmer's
Workshop C, and linked as an MPW Tool.  After I try it out on a few
more programs, I will post a binary of the tool to comp.binaries.mac
and the sources to comp.sources.mac.  The MPW implementation is pretty
much the same as the UNIX implementation, except the *stupid* compiler
and the *stupid* linker will not allow more than 32k of global data.
This means that the fast scanner options probably will not work,
unless you have a real small specification or are clever enough to
stuff the state tables in a resource.  The default scanner, which is
plenty fast, works fine.

     I didn't realize this until trying to link Flex, but a maximum of
32k for global data in a real program is *stupid* (imagine the word
*stupid* in bold, italic, shadowed style of the system font, size 24).
Get with it, Apple.

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*Earle R. Horton, H.B. 8000, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755   *
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