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NAME

       lex - generate programs for lexical tasks (DEVELOPMENT)

SYNOPSIS

       lex [-t][-n|-v][file ...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  lex  utility  shall generate C programs to be used in lexical processing of character
       input, and that can be used as an interface to yacc. The C  programs  shall  be  generated
       from  lex  source  code  and conform to the ISO C standard. Usually, the lex utility shall
       write the program it generates to the file lex.yy.c; the state of this file is unspecified
       if  lex  exits  with  a  non-zero  exit status. See the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section for a
       complete description of the lex input language.

OPTIONS

       The lex utility shall conform to the  Base  Definitions  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
       Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -n     Suppress  the summary of statistics usually written with the -v option. If no table
              sizes are specified in the lex source code and the -v option is not specified, then
              -n is implied.

       -t     Write the resulting program to standard output instead of lex.yy.c.

       -v     Write  a  summary  of lex statistics to the standard output. (See the discussion of
              lex table sizes in Definitions in lex .) If the -t option is specified  and  -n  is
              not  specified,  this report shall be written to standard error. If table sizes are
              specified in the lex source code, and if the -n option is  not  specified,  the  -v
              option may be enabled.

OPERANDS

       The following operand shall be supported:

       file   A  pathname  of  an  input file. If more than one such file is specified, all files
              shall be concatenated to produce a single lex program.  If  no  file  operands  are
              specified, or if a file operand is '-' , the standard input shall be used.

STDIN

       The  standard  input shall be used if no file operands are specified, or if a file operand
       is '-' . See INPUT FILES.

INPUT FILES

       The input files shall be text files containing  lex  source  code,  as  described  in  the
       EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of lex:

       LANG   Provide  a  default  value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
              null. (See the  Base  Definitions  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  Section  8.2,
              Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables
              used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to  a  non-empty  string  value,  override  the  values  of  all  the  other
              internationalization variables.

       LC_COLLATE

              Determine  the  locale  for the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-
              character collating elements within regular expressions. If this  variable  is  not
              set to the POSIX locale, the results are unspecified.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine  the  locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as
              characters (for  example,  single-byte  as  opposed  to  multi-byte  characters  in
              arguments  and  input  files), and the behavior of character classes within regular
              expressions.  If this variable is not set to the  POSIX  locale,  the  results  are
              unspecified.

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine  the  locale  that  should  be  used to affect the format and contents of
              diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       If the -t option is specified, the text file of C source  code  output  of  lex  shall  be
       written to standard output.

       If the -t option is not specified:

        * Implementation-defined  informational,  error,  and  warning  messages  concerning  the
          contents of lex source code input shall be written to either  the  standard  output  or
          standard error.

        * If  the -v option is specified and the -n option is not specified, lex statistics shall
          also be written to either the standard output or standard error, in an  implementation-
          defined  format.  These  statistics  may also be generated if table sizes are specified
          with a '%' operator in the Definitions section,  as  long  as  the  -n  option  is  not
          specified.

STDERR

       If  the  -t  option is specified, implementation-defined informational, error, and warning
       messages concerning the contents of lex source code input shall be written to the standard
       error.

       If the -t option is not specified:

        1. Implementation-defined  informational,  error,  and  warning  messages  concerning the
           contents of lex source code input shall be written to either the  standard  output  or
           standard error.

        2. If the -v option is specified and the -n option is not specified, lex statistics shall
           also be written to either the standard output or standard error, in an implementation-
           defined  format.  These  statistics may also be generated if table sizes are specified
           with a '%' operator in the Definitions section, as  long  as  the  -n  option  is  not
           specified.

OUTPUT FILES

       A  text  file  containing  C  source code shall be written to lex.yy.c, or to the standard
       output if the -t option is present.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       Each input file shall contain lex source code, which is a  table  of  regular  expressions
       with corresponding actions in the form of C program fragments.

       When  lex.yy.c  is  compiled  and linked with the lex library (using the -l l operand with
       c99), the resulting program shall read character input from the standard input  and  shall
       partition it into strings that match the given expressions.

       When an expression is matched, these actions shall occur:

        * The  input string that was matched shall be left in yytext as a null-terminated string;
          yytext shall either be an external character array or a pointer to a character  string.
          As  explained  in  Definitions  in  lex , the type can be explicitly selected using the
          %array or %pointer declarations, but the default is implementation-defined.

        * The external int yyleng shall be set to the length of the matching string.

        * The expression's corresponding program fragment, or action, shall be executed.

       During pattern matching, lex shall search the set  of  patterns  for  the  single  longest
       possible match. Among rules that match the same number of characters, the rule given first
       shall be chosen.

       The general format of lex source shall be:

              Definitions
              %%
              Rules
              %%
              UserSubroutines

       The first "%%" is required to mark the beginning of the  rules  (regular  expressions  and
       actions); the second "%%" is required only if user subroutines follow.

       Any  line  in  the Definitions section beginning with a <blank> shall be assumed to be a C
       program fragment and shall be copied to the external definition area of the lex.yy.c file.
       Similarly, anything in the Definitions section included between delimiter lines containing
       only "%{" and "%}" shall also be copied unchanged to the external definition area  of  the
       lex.yy.c file.

       Any  such  input  (beginning  with  a  <blank>  or  within  "%{" and "%}" delimiter lines)
       appearing at the beginning of the Rules section before any rules are  specified  shall  be
       written  to  lex.yy.c  after  the  declarations  of variables for the yylex() function and
       before the first line of code in yylex(). Thus, user variables local  to  yylex()  can  be
       declared here, as well as application code to execute upon entry to yylex().

       The  action  taken  by  lex when encountering any input beginning with a <blank> or within
       "%{" and "%}" delimiter lines appearing in the Rules section but coming after one or  more
       rules  is  undefined.  The presence of such input may result in an erroneous definition of
       the yylex() function.

   Definitions in lex
       Definitions appear before the first "%%" delimiter. Any line in this section not contained
       between  "%{" and "%}" lines and not beginning with a <blank> shall be assumed to define a
       lex substitution string. The format of these lines shall be:

              name substitute

       If a name does not meet the requirements for identifiers in the ISO C standard, the result
       is  undefined. The string substitute shall replace the string { name} when it is used in a
       rule. The name string shall be recognized  in  this  context  only  when  the  braces  are
       provided and when it does not appear within a bracket expression or within double-quotes.

       In  the  Definitions  section,  any line beginning with a '%' (percent sign) character and
       followed by an alphanumeric word beginning with either 's' or 'S' shall define  a  set  of
       start  conditions.  Any line beginning with a '%' followed by a word beginning with either
       'x' or 'X' shall define a set of exclusive start conditions. When the generated scanner is
       in  a %s state, patterns with no state specified shall be also active; in a %x state, such
       patterns shall not be active. The rest of  the  line,  after  the  first  word,  shall  be
       considered  to be one or more <blank>-separated names of start conditions. Start condition
       names shall be constructed in the same way as definition names. Start  conditions  can  be
       used to restrict the matching of regular expressions to one or more states as described in
       Regular Expressions in lex .

       Implementations shall accept either of the following two  mutually-exclusive  declarations
       in the Definitions section:

       %array Declare the type of yytext to be a null-terminated character array.

       %pointer
              Declare the type of yytext to be a pointer to a null-terminated character string.

       The  default  type of yytext is implementation-defined. If an application refers to yytext
       outside of the scanner source file (that is, via an extern), the application shall include
       the appropriate %array or %pointer declaration in the scanner source file.

       Implementations  shall  accept declarations in the Definitions section for setting certain
       internal table sizes. The declarations are shown in the following table.

                                 Table: Table Size Declarations in lex

                     Declaration  Description                         Minimum Value
                     %p n         Number of positions                 2500
                     %n n         Number of states                    500
                     %a n         Number of transitions               2000
                     %e n         Number of parse tree nodes          1000
                     %k n         Number of packed character classes  1000
                     %o n         Size of the output array            3000

       In the table, n represents a positive decimal integer, preceded by one or  more  <blank>s.
       The   exact   meaning   of   these  table  size  numbers  is  implementation-defined.  The
       implementation shall document how these numbers affect the lex utility and  how  they  are
       related  to  any  output that may be generated by the implementation should limitations be
       encountered during the execution of lex. It shall  be  possible  to  determine  from  this
       output  which  of the table size values needs to be modified to permit lex to successfully
       generate tables for the input language.  The values in the column Minimum Value  represent
       the lowest values conforming implementations shall provide.

   Rules in lex
       The  rules  in  lex  source  files  are  a table in which the left column contains regular
       expressions and the right column contains actions (C program  fragments)  to  be  executed
       when the expressions are recognized.

              ERE action
              ERE action...

       The  extended  regular expression (ERE) portion of a row shall be separated from action by
       one or more <blank>s. A regular expression containing <blank>s shall be  recognized  under
       one of the following conditions:

        * The entire expression appears within double-quotes.

        * The <blank>s appear within double-quotes or square brackets.

        * Each <blank> is preceded by a backslash character.

   User Subroutines in lex
       Anything in the user subroutines section shall be copied to lex.yy.c following yylex().

   Regular Expressions in lex
       The  lex  utility  shall  support  the  set  of extended regular expressions (see the Base
       Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 9.4,  Extended  Regular  Expressions),
       with the following additions and exceptions to the syntax:

       "..."  Any  string  enclosed  in  double-quotes  shall represent the characters within the
              double-quotes as themselves, except that backslash escapes  (which  appear  in  the
              following  table)  shall  be  recognized.   Any  backslash-escape sequence shall be
              terminated by the closing quote. For example, "\01" "1" represents a single string:
              the octal value 1 followed by the character '1' .

       <state>r, <state1,state2,...>r

              The  regular  expression  r shall be matched only when the program is in one of the
              start conditions indicated by state, state1, and so on; see Actions in lex . (As an
              exception  to  the  typographical  conventions  of  the  rest  of  this  volume  of
              IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, in this case <state> does not represent a  metavariable,  but
              the  literal  angle-bracket  characters  surrounding a symbol.) The start condition
              shall be recognized as such only at the beginning of a regular expression.

       r/x    The regular expression r shall be matched only if it is followed by  an  occurrence
              of  regular  expression  x ( x is the instance of trailing context, further defined
              below).  The token returned in yytext shall only match r. If the  trailing  portion
              of r matches the beginning of x, the result is unspecified. The r expression cannot
              include further trailing context or the '$' (match-end-of-line) operator; x  cannot
              include  the  '^' (match-beginning-of-line) operator, nor trailing context, nor the
              '$' operator. That is, only one occurrence of trailing context is allowed in a  lex
              regular  expression, and the '^' operator only can be used at the beginning of such
              an expression.

       {name} When name is one of the substitution symbols  from  the  Definitions  section,  the
              string,  including the enclosing braces, shall be replaced by the substitute value.
              The substitute value shall be treated in the extended regular expression as  if  it
              were  enclosed in parentheses. No substitution shall occur if { name} occurs within
              a bracket expression or within double-quotes.

       Within an ERE, a backslash character shall be considered to begin an  escape  sequence  as
       specified  in the table in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Chapter 5,
       File Format Notation ( '\\' , '\a' , '\b' , '\f' , '\n'  ,  '\r'  ,  '\t'  ,  '\v'  ).  In
       addition, the escape sequences in the following table shall be recognized.

       A  literal  <newline>  cannot occur within an ERE; the escape sequence '\n' can be used to
       represent a <newline>. A <newline> shall not be matched by a period operator.

                                     Table: Escape Sequences in lex

                 Escape
                 Sequence Description                    Meaning
                 \digits  A backslash character followed The character whose encoding
                          by the longest sequence of     is represented by the one,
                          one, two, or three octal-digit two, or three-digit octal
                          characters (01234567). If all  integer. If the size of a byte
                          of the digits are 0 (that is,  on the system is greater than
                          representation of the NUL      nine bits, the valid escape
                          character), the behavior is    sequence used to represent a
                          undefined.                     byte is implementation-
                                                         defined. Multi-byte characters
                                                         require multiple, concatenated
                                                         escape sequences of this type,
                                                         including the leading '\' for
                                                         each byte.
                 \xdigits A backslash character followed The character whose encoding
                          by the longest sequence of     is represented by the
                          hexadecimal-digit characters   hexadecimal integer.
                          (01234567abcdefABCDEF). If all
                          of the digits are 0 (that is,
                          representation of the NUL
                          character), the behavior is
                          undefined.

                 \c       A backslash character followed The character 'c' , unchanged.
                          by any character not described
                          in this table or in the table
                          in the Base Definitions volume
                          of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
                          Chapter 5, File Format
                          Notation ( '\\' , '\a' , '\b'
                          , '\f' , '\n' , '\r' , '\t' ,
                          '\v' ).

       Note:  If a '\x' sequence  needs  to  be  immediately  followed  by  a  hexadecimal  digit
              character,  a  sequence such as "\x1" "1" can be used, which represents a character
              containing the value 1, followed by the character '1' .

       The order of precedence given to extended regular expressions for lex  differs  from  that
       specified  in  the  Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 9.4, Extended
       Regular Expressions. The order of precedence for lex shall be as shown  in  the  following
       table, from high to low.

       Note:  The  escaped  characters  entry is not meant to imply that these are operators, but
              they are included in the table to show their relationships to the  true  operators.
              The  start  condition,  trailing context, and anchoring notations have been omitted
              from the table because of the placement restrictions  described  in  this  section;
              they can only appear at the beginning or ending of an ERE.

                                         Table: ERE Precedence in lex

                            Extended Regular Expression        Precedence
                            collation-related bracket symbols  [= =] [: :] [. .]
                            escaped characters                 \<special character>
                            bracket expression                 [ ]
                            quoting                            "..."
                            grouping                           ( )
                            definition                         {name}
                            single-character RE duplication    * + ?
                            concatenation
                            interval expression                {m,n}
                            alternation                        |

       The  ERE  anchoring  operators  '^'  and  '$' do not appear in the table. With lex regular
       expressions, these operators are restricted in their use: the '^'  operator  can  only  be
       used  at  the  beginning of an entire regular expression, and the '$' operator only at the
       end. The operators apply to the entire regular expression. Thus, for example, the  pattern
       "(^abc)|(def$)"  is  undefined;  it can instead be written as two separate rules, one with
       the regular expression "^abc" and one with "def$" , which share a common  action  via  the
       special  '|'  action (see below). If the pattern were written "^abc|def$" , it would match
       either "abc" or "def" on a line by itself.

       Unlike the general ERE rules, embedded anchoring is not allowed  by  most  historical  lex
       implementations.  An  example  of  embedded  anchoring  would  be  for  patterns  such  as
       "(^| )foo( |$)" to match "foo" when it exists as a complete word. This  functionality  can
       be obtained using existing lex features:

              ^foo/[ \n]      |
              " foo"/[ \n]    /* Found foo as a separate word. */

       Note  also that '$' is a form of trailing context (it is equivalent to "/\n" ) and as such
       cannot be used with regular expressions containing another instance of the  operator  (see
       the preceding discussion of trailing context).

       The  additional  regular  expressions  trailing-context  operator  '/'  can  be used as an
       ordinary character if presented within double-quotes, "/" ; preceded by a backslash,  "\/"
       ;  or within a bracket expression, "[/]" . The start-condition '<' and '>' operators shall
       be special only in a start condition at the beginning of a regular  expression;  elsewhere
       in the regular expression they shall be treated as ordinary characters.

   Actions in lex
       The  action  to be taken when an ERE is matched can be a C program fragment or the special
       actions described below; the program fragment can contain one or more  C  statements,  and
       can  also  include special actions. The empty C statement ';' shall be a valid action; any
       string in the lex.yy.c  input  that  matches  the  pattern  portion  of  such  a  rule  is
       effectively  ignored or skipped. However, the absence of an action shall not be valid, and
       the action lex takes in such a condition is undefined.

       The specification for an action, including C statements and special  actions,  can  extend
       across several lines if enclosed in braces:

              ERE <one or more blanks> { program statement
                                         program statement }

       The  default action when a string in the input to a lex.yy.c program is not matched by any
       expression shall be to copy the string to the output. Because the default  behavior  of  a
       program  generated  by  lex  is to read the input and copy it to the output, a minimal lex
       source program that has just "%%" shall generate a C program that simply copies the  input
       to the output unchanged.

       Four special actions shall be available:

              |   ECHO;   REJECT;   BEGIN

       |      The action '|' means that the action for the next rule is the action for this rule.
              Unlike the other three actions, '|' cannot be enclosed in braces or  be  semicolon-
              terminated;  the application shall ensure that it is specified alone, with no other
              actions.

       ECHO;  Write the contents of the string yytext on the output.

       REJECT;
              Usually only a single expression is matched by a given string in the input.  REJECT
              means  "continue  to the next expression that matches the current input", and shall
              cause whatever rule was the second choice after the current rule to be executed for
              the  same  input.  Thus,  multiple  rules can be matched and executed for one input
              string or overlapping input strings.  For example, given  the  regular  expressions
              "xyz"  and  "xy"  and  the  input "xyz" , usually only the regular expression "xyz"
              would match. The next attempted match would start after z. If the  last  action  in
              the  "xyz"  rule is REJECT, both this rule and the "xy" rule would be executed. The
              REJECT action may be implemented in such a fashion that flow of  control  does  not
              continue  after  it, as if it were equivalent to a goto to another part of yylex().
              The use of REJECT may result in somewhat larger and slower scanners.

       BEGIN  The action:

              BEGIN newstate;

       switches the state (start condition) to newstate. If the  string  newstate  has  not  been
       declared  previously  as  a  start  condition  in the Definitions section, the results are
       unspecified. The initial state is indicated by the digit '0' or the token INITIAL.

       The functions or macros described below are accessible to user code included  in  the  lex
       input.  It  is  unspecified  whether  they  appear  in  the  C  code output of lex, or are
       accessible only through the -l l operand to c99 (the lex library).

       int  yylex(void)

              Performs lexical analysis on the input; this is the primary function  generated  by
              the  lex  utility. The function shall return zero when the end of input is reached;
              otherwise, it shall return non-zero values (tokens) determined by the actions  that
              are selected.

       int  yymore(void)

              When  called,  indicates that when the next input string is recognized, it is to be
              appended to the current value of yytext rather than  replacing  it;  the  value  in
              yyleng shall be adjusted accordingly.

       int  yyless(int  n)

              Retains  n  initial  characters in yytext, NUL-terminated, and treats the remaining
              characters as if they had not been read; the value  in  yyleng  shall  be  adjusted
              accordingly.

       int  input(void)

              Returns the next character from the input, or zero on end-of-file.  It shall obtain
              input from the stream pointer yyin, although possibly via an  intermediate  buffer.
              Thus,  once  scanning  has  begun,  the  effect  of  altering  the value of yyin is
              undefined. The character read shall be removed from the input stream of the scanner
              without any processing by the scanner.

       int  unput(int  c)

              Returns  the  character 'c' to the input; yytext and yyleng are undefined until the
              next expression is matched. The result of using unput() for  more  characters  than
              have been input is unspecified.

       The  following  functions shall appear only in the lex library accessible through the -l l
       operand; they can therefore be redefined by a conforming application:

       int  yywrap(void)

              Called by yylex() at end-of-file; the default yywrap() shall always  return  1.  If
              the  application  requires  yylex()  to  continue processing with another source of
              input, then the application can  include  a  function  yywrap(),  which  associates
              another  file  with  the  external variable FILE * yyin and shall return a value of
              zero.

       int  main(int  argc, char *argv[])

              Calls yylex() to perform lexical analysis, then exits. The user  code  can  contain
              main() to perform application-specific operations, calling yylex() as applicable.

       Except  for  input(),  unput(), and main(), all external and static names generated by lex
       shall begin with the prefix yy or YY.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       Conforming applications are warned that in the Rules section, an ERE without an action  is
       not  acceptable,  but  need  not  be  detected  as  erroneous  by  lex. This may result in
       compilation or runtime errors.

       The purpose of input() is to take characters off the input stream and discard them as  far
       as  the  lexical  analysis  is concerned. A common use is to discard the body of a comment
       once the beginning of a comment is recognized.

       The lex utility is not fully internationalized in its treatment of regular expressions  in
       the  lex  source  code  or generated lexical analyzer. It would seem desirable to have the
       lexical analyzer interpret the regular expressions given in the lex  source  according  to
       the  environment specified when the lexical analyzer is executed, but this is not possible
       with the current lex technology. Furthermore, the very nature  of  the  lexical  analyzers
       produced  by  lex  must  be closely tied to the lexical requirements of the input language
       being described, which is frequently locale-specific  anyway.  (For  example,  writing  an
       analyzer  that  is  used  for French text is not automatically useful for processing other
       languages.)

EXAMPLES

       The following is an example of a lex program that implements a rudimentary scanner  for  a
       Pascal-like syntax:

              %{
              /* Need this for the call to atof() below. */
              #include <math.h>
              /* Need this for printf(), fopen(), and stdin below. */
              #include <stdio.h>
              %}

              DIGIT    [0-9]
              ID       [a-z][a-z0-9]*

              %%

              {DIGIT}+ {
                  printf("An integer: %s (%d)\n", yytext,
                      atoi(yytext));
                  }

              {DIGIT}+"."{DIGIT}*        {
                  printf("A float: %s (%g)\n", yytext,
                      atof(yytext));
                  }

              if|then|begin|end|procedure|function        {
                  printf("A keyword: %s\n", yytext);
                  }

              {ID}    printf("An identifier: %s\n", yytext);

              "+"|"-"|"*"|"/"        printf("An operator: %s\n", yytext);

              "{"[^}\n]*"}"    /* Eat up one-line comments. */

              [ \t\n]+        /* Eat up white space. */

              .  printf("Unrecognized character: %s\n", yytext);

              %%

              int main(int argc, char *argv[])
              {
                  ++argv, --argc;  /* Skip over program name. */
                  if (argc > 0)
                      yyin = fopen(argv[0], "r");
                  else
                      yyin = stdin;

                  yylex();
              }

RATIONALE

       Even  though  the  -c  option  and  references  to  the  C  language  are retained in this
       description, lex may be generalized to other languages, as was done at one time  for  EFL,
       the  Extended FORTRAN Language. Since the lex input specification is essentially language-
       independent, versions of this utility could be written to produce Ada, Modula-2, or Pascal
       code, and there are known historical implementations that do so.

       The  current  description of lex bypasses the issue of dealing with internationalized EREs
       in the lex source code or generated lexical analyzer. If it follows the model used by  awk
       (the  source code is assumed to be presented in the POSIX locale, but input and output are
       in the locale specified by the environment variables), then  the  tables  in  the  lexical
       analyzer  produced by lex would interpret EREs specified in the lex source in terms of the
       environment variables specified when lex was executed. The desired effect would be to have
       the  lexical  analyzer  interpret  the  EREs  given  in  the  lex  source according to the
       environment specified when the lexical analyzer is executed, but this is not possible with
       the current lex technology.

       The  description  of  octal  and  hexadecimal-digit escape sequences agrees with the ISO C
       standard use of escape sequences. See the RATIONALE for  ed  for  a  discussion  of  bytes
       larger  than  9  bits being represented by octal values.  Hexadecimal values can represent
       larger bytes and multi-byte characters directly, using as many digits as required.

       There is no detailed output format specification. The observed behavior of lex under  four
       different  historical  implementations was that none of these implementations consistently
       reported the line numbers for error and warning messages.  Furthermore, there was a desire
       that  lex  be  allowed  to  output additional diagnostic messages. Leaving message formats
       unspecified avoids these formatting questions and problems with internationalization.

       Although the %x specifier for exclusive start conditions is not historical practice, it is
       believed  to  be  a  minor  change  to historical implementations and greatly enhances the
       usability of lex  programs  since  it  permits  an  application  to  obtain  the  expected
       functionality with fewer statements.

       The  %array  and  %pointer  declarations  were  added  as  a compromise between historical
       systems. The System V-based lex copies the matched  text  to  a  yytext  array.  The  flex
       program, supported in BSD and GNU systems, uses a pointer. In the latter case, significant
       performance improvements are available for some scanners. Most historical programs  should
       require  no  change  in  porting  from  one  system  to  another  because the string being
       referenced is null-terminated in both cases. (The method used by flex in its  case  is  to
       null-terminate  the  token  in  place by remembering the character that used to come right
       after the token and replacing it before  continuing  on  to  the  next  scan.)  Multi-file
       programs  with  external  references  to  yytext  outside  the  scanner source file should
       continue to operate on their  historical  systems,  but  would  require  one  of  the  new
       declarations to be considered strictly portable.

       The  description  of  EREs  avoids  unnecessary  duplication  of ERE details because their
       meanings within a  lex  ERE  are  the  same  as  that  for  the  ERE  in  this  volume  of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.

       The  reason  for  the undefined condition associated with text beginning with a <blank> or
       within "%{" and "%}"  delimiter  lines  appearing  in  the  Rules  section  is  historical
       practice. Both the BSD and System V lex copy the indented (or enclosed) input in the Rules
       section (except at the beginning) to unreachable areas of the yylex() function  (the  code
       is written directly after a break statement). In some cases, the System V lex generates an
       error message or a syntax error, depending on the form of indented input.

       The intention in breaking the list of functions into those that  may  appear  in  lex.yy.c
       versus  those  that  only  appear  in libl.a is that only those functions in libl.a can be
       reliably redefined by a conforming application.

       The descriptions of standard output and standard error are  somewhat  complicated  because
       historical  lex  implementations  chose  to  issue  diagnostic messages to standard output
       (unless -t was given). IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 allows this behavior, but  leaves  an  opening
       for the more expected behavior of using standard error for diagnostics. Also, the System V
       behavior of writing the statistics when any table sizes are given is allowed,  while  BSD-
       derived  systems  can  avoid  it.  The  programmer can always precisely obtain the desired
       results by using either the -t or -n options.

       The OPERANDS section does not mention the use of - as a synonym for  standard  input;  not
       all historical implementations support such usage for any of the file operands.

       A  description  of  the  translation table was deleted from early proposals because of its
       relatively low usage in historical applications.

       The change to the definition of the  input()  function  that  allows  buffering  of  input
       presents the opportunity for major performance gains in some applications.

       The following examples clarify the differences between lex regular expressions and regular
       expressions appearing elsewhere  in  this  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.  For  regular
       expressions  of  the  form "r/x" , the string matching r is always returned; confusion may
       arise when the beginning of x matches the trailing portion of r.  For example,  given  the
       regular  expression  "a*b/cc"  and  the  input  "aaabcc" , yytext would contain the string
       "aaab" on this match. But given the regular expression "x*/xy" and the input "xxxy" ,  the
       token xxx, not xx, is returned by some implementations because xxx matches "x*" .

       In  the  rule  "ab*/bc" , the "b*" at the end of r extends r's match into the beginning of
       the trailing context, so the result is unspecified. If this rule were "ab/bc"  ,  however,
       the rule matches the text "ab" when it is followed by the text "bc" . In this latter case,
       the matching of r cannot extend into the beginning of x, so the result is specified.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       c99 , ed , yacc

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2003  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by
       the  Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE  and  The  Open  Group
       Standard,  the  original  IEEE  and  The  Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .