FLEX(1)

💖 FLEX(1) — the flex page, bestie 💖

okay so this is the Programming section, the title is FLEX(1), and the manual name is flex — the fast lexical analyser generator. She's iconic, she's useful, and we're getting into every single flag. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

flex — the fast lexical analyser generator. That's the whole name section, bestie. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

flex [OPTIONS] [FILE]...

That's the whole vibe: you run flex with options and files. ✨

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

Generates programs that perform pattern-matching on text. That's the core, and the rest is all the knobs, dials, and little details. 🦋

🎀 Table Compression 🎀

• -Ca, --align — trade off larger tables for better memory alignment
• -Ce, --ecs — construct equivalence classes
• -Cf — do not compress tables; use -f representation
• -CF — do not compress tables; use -F representation
• -Cm, --meta-ecs — construct meta-equivalence classes
• -Cr, --read — use read() instead of stdio for scanner input
• -f, --full — generate fast, large scanner. Same as -Cfr
• -F, --fast — use alternate table representation. Same as -CFr
• -Cem — default compression (same as --ecs --meta-ecs)

🐛 Debugging 🐛

• -d, --debug — enable debug mode in scanner
• -b, --backup — write backing-up information to lex.backup
• -p, --perf-report — write performance report to stderr
• -s, --nodefault — suppress default rule to ECHO unmatched text
• -T, --trace — flex should run in trace mode
• -w, --nowarn — do not generate warnings
• -v, --verbose — write summary of scanner statistics to stdout
• --hex — use hexadecimal numbers instead of octal in debug outputs

📁 FILES 📁

okay the page labels this whole next chunk FILES, and we're keeping the order exactly as she wrote it. No notes. 💅

• -o, --outfile=FILE — specify output filename
• -S, --skel=FILE — specify skeleton file
• -t, --stdout — write scanner on stdout instead of lex.yy.c
• --yyclass=NAME — name of C++ class
• --header-file=FILE — create a C header file in addition to the scanner
• --tables-file[=FILE] — write tables to FILE

💅 Scanner behavior 💅

• -7, --7bit — generate 7-bit scanner
• -8, --8bit — generate 8-bit scanner
• -B, --batch — generate batch scanner (opposite of -I)
• -i, --case-insensitive — ignore case in patterns
• -l, --lex-compat — maximal compatibility with original lex
• -X, --posix-compat — maximal compatibility with POSIX lex
• -I, --interactive — generate interactive scanner (opposite of -B)
• --yylineno — track line count in yylineno

🌈 Generated code 🌈

• -+, --c++ — generate C++ scanner class
• -Dmacro[=defn] — #define macro defn (default defn is '1')
• -L, --noline — suppress #line directives in scanner
• -P, --prefix=STRING — use STRING as prefix instead of "yy"
• -R, --reentrant — generate a reentrant C scanner
• --bison-bridge — scanner for bison pure parser.
• --bison-locations — include yylloc support.
• --stdinit — initialize yyin/yyout to stdin/stdout
• --nounistd — do not include <unistd.h>
• --noFUNCTION — do not generate a particular FUNCTION

🍓 Miscellaneous 🍓

• -c — do-nothing POSIX option
• -n — do-nothing POSIX option
• -? — (the page gives no description for this one, bestie)
• -h, --help — produce this help message
• -V, --version — report flex version

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

The full documentation for flex is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and flex programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info flex

should give you access to the complete manual. ✨

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🫶 okay that's the page — footer sign-off vibes: The Flex Project · February 2024 · FLEX(1). Mwah. 💋