Lex is a tool that breaks up input text into tokens using regular expressions. It has three main sections: a definition section for C code, a rules section with patterns and actions, and a code section for additional C code. Lex uses these sections to generate a C file containing a lexer called yylex() that can recognize patterns in the input text and perform actions.
Lex is a tool that breaks up input text into tokens using regular expressions. It has three main sections: a definition section for C code, a rules section with patterns and actions, and a code section for additional C code. Lex uses these sections to generate a C file containing a lexer called yylex() that can recognize patterns in the input text and perform actions.
Lex is a tool that breaks up input text into tokens using regular expressions. It has three main sections: a definition section for C code, a rules section with patterns and actions, and a code section for additional C code. Lex uses these sections to generate a C file containing a lexer called yylex() that can recognize patterns in the input text and perform actions.
Lex is a tool that breaks up input text into tokens using regular expressions. It has three main sections: a definition section for C code, a rules section with patterns and actions, and a code section for additional C code. Lex uses these sections to generate a C file containing a lexer called yylex() that can recognize patterns in the input text and perform actions.
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What is Lex
Lex is a tool officially known for Lexical
Analaysis It's main job is to break up an input stream into more usable elements called as tokens. Or in, other words, to identify the "interesting bits" in a text file. It uses regular expression matching; typically to tokenize the contents of the file. Lexical Analyzer Lex Compiler Lex.l Lex.yy.c Lex.yy.c C Compiler a.out Structure of Lex A lex file looks like
...definition section... %% ...rules section... %% ...code section... Definition Section %{ Definition Section }% The definition section, introduces any initial C program code we want to copy into the final program For eg we want header files that must be included for code later in the file to work
Lex copies the material between %{ and }% directly to the generated C file (lex.yy.c) The %% marks the end of this section Rules Section The rules section is made up of two parts: A pattern An Action separated by whitespace The lexer that lex generates will execute the action when it recognizes the pattern These patterns are UNIX-style regular expressions The %% marks the end of this section
Code Section The final section is the user subroutines section or code section, which consist of any legal C code. Lex copies it to the C file after the end of the lex geneated code The lexer produced by lex is a C routine called yylex(). Simple Lex Program %{ /* simple C program*/ %} %% Hello" { printf(Welcome");}
