[GoLUG] I just made my first Flex lexical analyzer Hello World

[Steve Litt]

David Billsbrough said on Sun, 12 Nov 2023 08:35:09 +0000

>Original Message --  Steve Litt <slitt at tro...>  wrote:
> 
>
>> Hi all,  
>
>> I just made my first Flex lexical analyzer Hello World, as follows:  
>
>  { trimmed }
>
>> Like I say, this useless program is simply a hello world.  
>
>> My hope is that, in about 5 years, I'll be able to use flex and its
>> semi-companion bison to create a parser for an incredibly easy
>> keyboard friendly book authoring system superior to LyX, and much
>> more flexible than Markdown or AsciiDoc.  
>
>SteveT,
>
>I complied it without a lot of problems ... then ran it ... and the
>Earth didn't come to a stand-still or nothing else of significance!
>:-)
>
>It just might take you five years or longer.   Try going here next
>Steve and you'll other folks:
>
>   https://ruslanspivak.com/lsbasi-part1/
>
>I will also work on it myself ... just for fun!

Hey David,

Let's you and I create a parsing club, with you persuing
https://ruslanspivak.com/lsbasi-part1/ and me persuing flex and bison,
and teach each other what we've learned on a regular basis. The GoLUG
mailing list is quiet enough that at least for the time being, we could
use the GoLUG mailing list and GoLUG IRC to communicate with each other.

Of course, other people are welcome to join our club.

If we haven't promised the December GoLUG presentation to anybody yet,
you and I can present on what we've learned, and probably get a lot of
people smarter than us to attend and steer us in the right direction.

I know you arrive late to GoLUG meetings, so I'll do the first part of
the presentation to give you time to get to the meeting.

You know, since I became a programmer in 1984 I thought I wasn't smart
enough to write a compiler or interpreter. Now I'm not so sure, and
what a wonder it would be to do away with that mental block. 

SteveT

Steve Litt 

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21