String input to flex lexer - c

Question

I want to create a read-eval-print loop using flex/bison parser. Trouble is, the flex generated lexer wants input of type FILE* and i would like it to be char*. Is there anyway to do this?
One suggestion has been to create a pipe, feed it the string and open the file descriptor and send to the lexer. This is fairly simple but it feels convoluted and not very platform independent. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

The following routines are available for setting up input buffers for scanning in-memory strings instead of files (as yy_create_buffer does):
YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_scan_string(const char *str): scans a NUL-terminated string`
YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_scan_bytes(const char *bytes, int len): scans len bytes (including possibly NULs) starting at location bytes
Note that both of these functions create, return a corresponding YY_BUFFER_STATE handle (which you must delete with yy_delete_buffer() when done with it) so yylex() scan a copy of the string or bytes. This behavior may be desirable since yylex() modifies the contents of the buffer it is scanning).
If you want avoid the copy (and yy_delete_buffer) using:
YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_scan_buffer(char *base, yy_size_t size)
sample main:
int main() {
yy_scan_buffer("a test string");
yylex();
}

Answer 2

See this section of Flex's manual for information on how to scan in-memory buffers, such as strings.

Answer 3

flex can parse char * using any one of three functions: yy_scan_string(),
yy_scan_buffer(), and yy_scan_bytes() (see the documentation). Here's an example of the first:
typedef struct yy_buffer_state * YY_BUFFER_STATE;
extern int yyparse();
extern YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_scan_string(char * str);
extern void yy_delete_buffer(YY_BUFFER_STATE buffer);
int main(){
char string[] = "String to be parsed.";
YY_BUFFER_STATE buffer = yy_scan_string(string);
yyparse();
yy_delete_buffer(buffer);
return 0;
}
The equivalent statements for yy_scan_buffer() (which requires a doubly null-terminated string):
char string[] = "String to be parsed.\0";
YY_BUFFER_STATE buffer = yy_scan_buffer(string, sizeof(string));
My answer reiterates some of the information provided by #dfa and #jlholland, but neither of their answers' code seemed to be working for me.

Answer 4

Here is what I needed to do :
extern yy_buffer_state;
typedef yy_buffer_state *YY_BUFFER_STATE;
extern int yyparse();
extern YY_BUFFER_STATE yy_scan_buffer(char *, size_t);
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
char tstr[] = "line i want to parse\n\0\0";
// note yy_scan_buffer is is looking for a double null string
yy_scan_buffer(tstr, sizeof(tstr));
yy_parse();
return 0;
}
you cannot extern the typedef, which make sense when you think about it.

Answer 5

The accepted answer is incorrect. It will cause memory leaks.
Internally, yy_scan_string calls yy_scan_bytes which, in turn, calls yy_scan_buffer.
yy_scan_bytes allocates memory for a COPY of the input buffer.
yy_scan_buffer works directly upon the supplied buffer.
With all three forms, you MUST call yy_delete_buffer to free the flex buffer-state information (YY_BUFFER_STATE).
However, with yy_scan_buffer, you avoid the internal allocation/copy/free of the internal buffer.
The prototype for yy_scan_buffer does NOT take a const char* and you MUST NOT expect the contents to remain unchanged.
If you allocated memory to hold your string, you are responsible for freeing it AFTER you call yy_delete_buffer.
Also, don't forget to have yywrap return 1 (non-zero) when you're parsing JUST this string.
Below is a COMPLETE example.
%%
<<EOF>> return 0;
. return 1;
%%
int yywrap()
{
return (1);
}
int main(int argc, const char* const argv[])
{
FILE* fileHandle = fopen(argv[1], "rb");
if (fileHandle == NULL) {
perror("fopen");
return (EXIT_FAILURE);
}
fseek(fileHandle, 0, SEEK_END);
long fileSize = ftell(fileHandle);
fseek(fileHandle, 0, SEEK_SET);
// When using yy_scan_bytes, do not add 2 here ...
char *string = malloc(fileSize + 2);
fread(string, fileSize, sizeof(char), fileHandle);
fclose(fileHandle);
// Add the two NUL terminators, required by flex.
// Omit this for yy_scan_bytes(), which allocates, copies and
// apends these for us.
string[fileSize] = '\0';
string[fileSize + 1] = '\0';
// Our input file may contain NULs ('\0') so we MUST use
// yy_scan_buffer() or yy_scan_bytes(). For a normal C (NUL-
// terminated) string, we are better off using yy_scan_string() and
// letting flex manage making a copy of it so the original may be a
// const char (i.e., literal) string.
YY_BUFFER_STATE buffer = yy_scan_buffer(string, fileSize + 2);
// This is a flex source file, for yacc/bison call yyparse()
// here instead ...
int token;
do {
token = yylex(); // MAY modify the contents of the 'string'.
} while (token != 0);
// After flex is done, tell it to release the memory it allocated.
yy_delete_buffer(buffer);
// And now we can release our (now dirty) buffer.
free(string);
return (EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Answer 6

Other-way, you can redefine function YY_INPUT in lex file, and then set your string to LEX's input. As below:
#undef YY_INPUT
#define YY_INPUT(buf) (my_yyinput(buf))
char my_buf[20];
void set_lexbuf(char *org_str)
{ strcpy(my_buf, org_str); }
void my_yyinput (char *buf)
{ strcpy(buf, my_buf); }
In your main.c, before scanning, you need to set lex's buffer first:
set_lexbuf(your_string);
scanning...

Answer 7

here is a small example for using bison / flex as a parser inside your cpp code for parsing string and changing a string value according to it
(few parts of the code were removed so there might be irrelevant parts there.)
parser.y :
%{
#include "parser.h"
#include "lex.h"
#include <math.h>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
int yyerror(yyscan_t scanner, string result, const char *s){
(void)scanner;
std::cout << "yyerror : " << *s << " - " << s << std::endl;
return 1;
}
%}
%code requires{
#define YY_TYPEDEF_YY_SCANNER_T
typedef void * yyscan_t;
#define YYERROR_VERBOSE 0
#define YYMAXDEPTH 65536*1024
#include <math.h>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
}
%output "parser.cpp"
%defines "parser.h"
%define api.pure full
%lex-param{ yyscan_t scanner }
%parse-param{ yyscan_t scanner } {std::string & result}
%union {
std::string * sval;
}
%token TOKEN_ID TOKEN_ERROR TOKEN_OB TOKEN_CB TOKEN_AND TOKEN_XOR TOKEN_OR TOKEN_NOT
%type <sval> TOKEN_ID expression unary_expression binary_expression
%left BINARY_PRIO
%left UNARY_PRIO
%%
top:
expression {result = *$1;}
;
expression:
TOKEN_ID {$$=$1; }
| TOKEN_OB expression TOKEN_CB {$$=$2;}
| binary_expression {$$=$1;}
| unary_expression {$$=$1;}
;
unary_expression:
TOKEN_NOT expression %prec UNARY_PRIO {result = " (NOT " + *$2 + " ) " ; $$ = &result;}
;
binary_expression:
expression expression %prec BINARY_PRIO {result = " ( " + *$1+ " AND " + *$2 + " ) "; $$ = &result;}
| expression TOKEN_AND expression %prec BINARY_PRIO {result = " ( " + *$1+ " AND " + *$3 + " ) "; $$ = &result;}
| expression TOKEN_OR expression %prec BINARY_PRIO {result = " ( " + *$1 + " OR " + *$3 + " ) "; $$ = &result;}
| expression TOKEN_XOR expression %prec BINARY_PRIO {result = " ( " + *$1 + " XOR " + *$3 + " ) "; $$ = &result;}
;
%%
lexer.l :
%{
#include <string>
#include "parser.h"
%}
%option outfile="lex.cpp" header-file="lex.h"
%option noyywrap never-interactive
%option reentrant
%option bison-bridge
%top{
/* This code goes at the "top" of the generated file. */
#include <stdint.h>
}
id ([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*)+
white [ \t\r]
newline [\n]
%%
{id} {
yylval->sval = new std::string(yytext);
return TOKEN_ID;
}
"(" {return TOKEN_OB;}
")" {return TOKEN_CB;}
"*" {return TOKEN_AND;}
"^" {return TOKEN_XOR;}
"+" {return TOKEN_OR;}
"!" {return TOKEN_NOT;}
{white}; // ignore white spaces
{newline};
. {
return TOKEN_ERROR;
}
%%
usage :
void parse(std::string& function) {
string result = "";
yyscan_t scanner;
yylex_init_extra(NULL, &scanner);
YY_BUFFER_STATE state = yy_scan_string(function.c_str() , scanner);
yyparse(scanner,result);
yy_delete_buffer(state, scanner);
yylex_destroy(scanner);
function = " " + result + " ";
}
makefile:
parser.h parser.cpp: parser.y
# /usr/local/bison/2.7.91/bin/bison -y -d parser.y
lex.h lex.cpp: lexer.l
# /usr/local/flex/2.5.39/bin/flex lexer.l
clean:
- \rm -f *.o parser.h parser.cpp lex.h lex.cpp

Answer 8

There's this funny code in libmatheval:
/* Redefine macro to redirect scanner input from string instead of
* standard input. */
#define YY_INPUT( buffer, result, max_size ) \
{ result = input_from_string (buffer, max_size); }