Hi, Akim. >This is the Bison manual, and we don't try to compete with the "flex & bison" >book. I tried to websearch this book and found it in Google Books. Google Books showed me preview and suggested to buy full copy. Also I found some free online full copy, but I wonder whether it is legal. So, it seems this book is not free (I mean free as free beer). And also it seems it is not free as in freedom. So, it seems that if user has problems with understanding how Flex and Bison work (they are both free software), you suggest them go read non-free book. You said you don't try to complete. Well, you should do exactly this: complete with non-free documentation. What Stallman would say?
Even if you don't agree with me, well, at least, please, insert a link to the manual pointing to that book. >Besides, locations are also a key feature. Since out there there are many >examples that don't show how to track locations, and since it's a fundamental >feature for any user-facing parser, we _have_ to show how it works. I still think that the manual should give at least one C+Flex+Bison example without locations and at least one "C++"+Flex+Bison example without locations. Just because the user should have something simple to begin with. Okey, I agree, that this examples should be pure. If you add them to /examples/, then, please, link them from the manual. Even if you will not add examples, please, insert a link to some external web page, where users can view them. >Again, there are plenty of this on the Internet. No. When I first decided to write Flex+Bison+"C++" parser, I didn't find anything useful in internet. Right now I repeated my websearch and didn't find anything useful again. What I want is "C++"+Flex+Bison example, which contains nothing on top of "C++"+Flex+Bison. In particular it should not contain any "driver classes", nor it should contain any other code, which is not needed for example. The only source files should be scanner.ll, parser.yy and possibly main.cc and some short headers, but nothing more. The user should not try to figure which code is essential, and which is not (and thus can be removed). What I found instead? This is first 6 links in Google search "c++ bison flex example" from my computer (note, that Google does so-called "bubbling", so at your computer you may get different search results): * http://www.gnu.org/s/bison/manual/html_node/A-Complete-C_002b_002b-Example.html This is that behemoth scary big example from official documentation * https://github.com/bingmann/flex-bison-cpp-example Contains driver.cc with driver class * https://github.com/ezaquarii/bison-flex-cpp-example Contains driver, too, and also some command.cpp and interpreter.cpp * https://panthema.net/2007/flex-bison-cpp-example/ This is just mirror of already mentioned https://github.com/bingmann/flex-bison-cpp-example * http://www.jonathanbeard.io/tutorials/FlexBisonC++ Contains driver, again * https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26619079/compiling-flex-and-bison-into-cpp The only example is link to already mentioned http://www.jonathanbeard.io/tutorials/FlexBisonC++ You may say that driver is useful. Well, yes, probably. But I still think that a user should see example without any driver just to understand how the example works. Also, it is possible the user have already working parser written in C. And he wants to know what exactly he should change to turn it into C++ parser (also let's assume he wants to use C++ semantic values with non-trivial destructors etc, so just processing Bison output with C++ compiler is not enough). So this user wants example as simple as possible. Just to know what is difference between C parser and C++ parser. Just to know what exactly he should change. Instead Bison manual gives huge example with some driver class (what this means?). Well, I am not trying to say that I am too stupid to understand driver class. I just want to say that first I want to see example without driver class, and only after that example with driver class. Here is how I would write C++ example: https://paste.gg/p/anonymous/ad450c26fd6d443b900fbc36f4eb599e . It is possible I did something wrong. Well, my example just to show you what size C++ example should have. I don't claim the example to be perfect. I tested it, and it works. * As you can see, this is bare minimum. There is only two files, not counting Makefile! * My example seems to be pure parser * I warned the user that Flex processes C++ code, but is run in C mode, and thus thinks that it processes C code (your example does the same, but you didn't warned user about this) * I give exact command lines to run my example, you don't Unfortunately, I was not able to find in internet something like this example. If I had this example available when I first tried to understand everything, this would be very good. If you will include my example into docs, well, this would be very good, but then, please, check it for errors. >We are quite a few here to have some experience with Flex in C++, and it's not >pretty. You mean that Flex is rarely used in C++ mode? Okey, call it in C mode then >Why Flex only? There is also POSIX Lex Is there any lex implementation in use today not counting flex? >I'm not sure there's really a need for such a templating system, but once it >exists, I will be most happy to use it to generate the flex+bison in C to add >to examples/c, or to point Bison users to it Unfortunately, I will not create such in near future == Askar Safin http://vk.com/safinaskar
