Re: is lex useful?

qjackson@direct.ca (Quinn Tyler Jackson)
23 Jun 1996 23:21:18 -0400

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
is lex useful? kelley@phys.ocean.dal.ca (Dan E. Kelley) (1996-06-21)
Re: is lex useful? qjackson@direct.ca (1996-06-23)
Re: is lex useful? rkanagy@erols.com (Ronald Kanagy) (1996-06-23)
Re: is lex useful? qjackson@direct.ca (1996-06-24)
Re: is lex useful? kelley@Phys.Ocean.Dal.Ca (1996-06-24)
Re: is lex useful? Scott.Nicol@infoadvan.com (1996-06-24)
Re: is lex useful? kanze@lts.sel.alcatel.de (1996-06-24)
Re: is lex useful? bos@serpentine.com (1996-06-26)
[21 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |
From: qjackson@direct.ca (Quinn Tyler Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 23 Jun 1996 23:21:18 -0400
Organization: Compilers Central
Keywords: lex, performance, comment

On 21 Jun 1996 17:07:17 -0400, kelley@phys.ocean.dal.ca wrote:


>Although all the books suggest that lex is a good thing, even a great
>thing, [few people seem to use it]


>So, my question is: if lex is useful, why isn't it used? Is there
>some snag (speed problems, perhaps, or difficult to port code?) that
>makes it smart to avoid lex?


I personally am not fond of lex for several reasons:


      a) I don't like its code interface,
      b) I don't like having RE's hardcoded -- I prefer a system that
can parse patterns and match them at run-time if need be.


Cheers,


Quinn


--
        Parsepolis Software || Quinn Tyler Jackson
                "ParseCity" || qjackson@direct.ca
[The advantage of precomputing the state machine is that your lexer can run
a lot faster. AT&T lex is slow, but that's due to bad implementation. Flex
is quite fast, easily competitive with hand-written lexers. -John]
--

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