Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!lll-lcc!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: YACC grammar for C language
Message-ID: <9363@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 14 Jan 89 11:57:23 GMT
References: <175@calmasd.GE.COM> <1183@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <1183@goofy.megatest.UUCP> djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes:
-In article <175@calmasd.GE.COM>, jhh@calmasd.GE.COM (Jung Hamel) writes:
->    Does anybody have or know of YACC grammar for C that does
-> not require the lexical analyser to differentiate typedef
-> names from other identifier names?
-Nope, nobody does. There ain't know such thing. If type-names
-are treated the same as identifiers, C is inherently ambiguous.

More precisely, type names must be taken into account when parsing C.
There are cases where the wrong parse will result if this isn't done.

-I have a suspicion that the C grammar that has been circulating on the
-net for the last year or two, with the comment that all it needs is a
-lexical analyzer, is, in reality, a rather arcane practical joke.

No, I think the people who keep requesting a copy of it really do think
that all they need to do is feed it to YACC and that will take care of
the syntactic phase of a C compiler.  Of course, they're mistaken..