[MUD-Dev] Storing tokens with flex & bison

[Chris Turner]

On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, Christer Enfors wrote:

> I'm not sure if this is the proper forum for this kind of question, but I
> can't find any mailing lists for lex & yacc, and it is a MUD I'm
> developing...
> 
> I want to write a MUD server, and for this I want to develop a LPC-like
> interpreting programming (or call it scripting if you like) language with
> flex and bison.
> 
> When flex reads a file, would it be a good idea to store the tokens
> returned from yylex() in a list? I was thinking one list for each function
> definition, and then having bison read from that list when executing that
> function, instead of reading directly from the file using flex?
> 
> If so, how would I get yylex() to return tokens from my list instead of
> tokens from the file? Or would that be going about it the wrong way?

To get yylex() to return the tokens from the list, you'd have replace the
input routine it uses, with one that fakes input based upon the list of
tokens.  This is more hassle than it's worth *8).

The correct/easiest way to do it, is to get bison to call a wrapper function
that either calls yylex() or pops the next token off the list.

> Or should I simply read the function definition from the file with flex
> each time I want to execute the function?

Well this would always work with what you have already.  It might be a bit
slower.  If you want a real speed increase, you would be better off compiling
the function into some form of byte-code, which could be run though without
needing to parse anything.

> Maybe someone could point me to a lex & yacc tutorial that includes
> writing an interpreted language that allowes user defined functions
> written in that language, since that is basically what I'm trying to do
> myself.

The O'Reilly Lex & Yacc book is well written and contains many tutorials.

Chris
--
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