Re: Buffered input for a lexer?

Clayton Weaver wrote:
> I actually think it would make sense if an editor's language mode just
> did it automatically (terminate all saved source files with a single
> end-of-line in the native syntax of the host system when you save the
> file). It's absurd to leave something so simple up to the programmer
> when you consider how small a job this is compared to all of the other
> specialized editor code that goes into a programming-language-specific
> editing mode.


I think it makes more sense to have the language processor properly
interpret lines without an end-of-line. It's just good programming
practice to have an as small set of constraints on the input as is
reasonable.


I happen to be nearly done with a handcrafted lexer right now, and
while handling boundary cases like this wasn't exactly child's play, I
have encountered no serious problems. It was all just an exercize in
organizing the data flow and putting the "if" statements into the
right levels of abstraction. (Interpreting end-of-file as end-of-line
was just one boundary condition that I had to consider, and actually
one of the easier ones.)

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