NAME

       yacc - yet another compiler-compiler

SYNOPSIS

       yacc [ option ...  ] grammar

DESCRIPTION

       Yacc  converts  a  context-free  grammar  and translation code into a set of tables for an
       LR(1) parser and translator.  The grammar may be ambiguous; specified precedence rules are
       used to break ambiguities.

       The  output  file,  y.tab.c,  must be compiled by the C compiler to produce a program This
       program must be loaded with a lexical analyzer function, yylex(void) (often  generated  by
       lex(1)),  with a main(int argc, char *argv[]) program, and with an error handling routine,
       yyerror(char*).

       The options are

       -o output  Direct output to the specified file instead of y.tab.c.

       -Dn        Create file y.debug, containing diagnostic messages.  To  incorporate  them  in
                  the parser, compile it with preprocessor symbol yydebug defined.  The amount of
                  diagnostic output from the parser is regulated by value n.  The value 0 reports
                  errors;  1 reports reductions; higher values (up to 4) include more information
                  about state transitions.

       -v         Create file y.output, containing a description of the  parsing  tables  and  of
                  conflicts arising from ambiguities in the grammar.

       -d         Create file y.tab.h, containing #define statements that associate yacc-assigned
                  `token codes' with user-declared `token names'.  Include  it  in  source  files
                  other than y.tab.c to give access to the token codes.

       -s stem    Change  the prefix of the file names y.tab.c, y.tab.h, y.debug, and y.output to
                  stem.

       -S         Write a parser that uses Stdio instead of the print routines in libc.

       -l         Disable #line directives in the generated parser.

       -a         Generate a parser that takes an argument of type Yyarg and passes this argument
                  to  each  invocation of the lexer function, yylex.  Yyarg contains per-instance
                  state and a single user-visible member, arg, of type void*.

       The specification of yacc itself is essentially the same as the UNIX version described  in
       the references mentioned below.  Besides the -D option, the main relevant differences are:

              The  interface  to  the  C  environment  is by default through <libc.h> rather than
              <stdio.h>; the -S option reverses this.

              The parser accepts UTF input text (see utf(7)), which  has  a  couple  of  effects.
              First,  the return value of yylex() no longer fits in a short; second, the starting
              value for non-terminals is now 0xE000 rather than 257.

              The generated parser can be recursive: actions can call  yyparse,  for  example  to
              implement a sort of #include statement in an interpreter.

              Finally,  some  undocumented  inner workings of the parser have been changed, which
              may affect programs that know too much about its structure.

FILES

       y.output

       y.tab.c

       y.tab.h

       y.debug

       y.tmp.*
              temporary file

       y.acts.*
              temporary file

       /lib/yaccpar
              parser prototype

       /lib/yaccpars
              parser prototype using stdio

SOURCE

       /src/cmd/yacc.c

SEE ALSO

       lex(1)
       S.  C.  Johnson  and  R.  Sethi,  ``Yacc:  A  parser  generator'',  Unix  Research  System
       Programmer's Manual, Tenth Edition, Volume 2
       B. W. Kernighan and Rob Pike, The UNIX Programming Environment, Prentice Hall, 1984

BUGS

       The  parser  may  not have full information when it writes to y.debug so that the names of
       the tokens returned by may be missing.

                                                                                     YACC(1plan9)