DN410897825

Subject: tcLex v1.1a1: a lexical analyzer generator for Tcl - DN [1]

Frederic BONNET <frederic.bonnet@ciril.fr> - 11 Nov 1998 - comp.lang.tcl,comp.lang.tcl.announce

 I am pleased to announce the new development version of tcLex:

 tcLex v1.1a1: a lexical analyzer generator for Tcl
 by Frédéric BONNET (frederic.bonnet@ciril.fr)

 Updated 11 november 1998, 17:52

 The home page for this package is:
 http://www.multimania.com/fbonnet/Tcl/tcLex/index.en.htm

 ************************************************************************

 INTRODUCTION

 tcLex is a lexer (lexical analyzer) generator extension to Tcl. It is
 inspired by Unix and GNU lex and flex, which are "tools for generating
 programs that perform pattern-matching on text". tcLex is very
 similar to these programs, except it uses Tcl philosophy and syntax,
 whereas the others use their own syntax and are used in conjunction
 with the C language. People used to lex or flex should then feel
 familiar with tcLex.

 tcLex is a small extension (the Windows compiled version is about
 20kb, and the source is about 150kb), because it extensively uses the
 Tcl library. However, the current doesn't use Tcl's regexp code anymore
 but a patched version is now included in tcLex, which makes it slightly
 bigger (by a few KB).

 tcLex should work with Tcl 8.0 and later. tcLex will NEVER work with
 earlier versions, because it uses Tcl 8.0's "object" system for
 performance.

 The most interesting features are:

  * cross-platform support, thanks to Tcl. Though it has been developped
    on Windows and tested on Windows and Unix only, it should work on
    other platforms as long as Tcl exists on these platforms. Supported
    Tcl platforms are Windows 95/NT, Unix (Linux, Solaris...) and
    Macintosh. Other platforms are VMS, OS/2, NeXTStep, Amiga...
  * unlike lex and flex, which only generate static lexers written in C
    and intended to be compiled, tcLex dynamically generates Tcl commands
    that can be used like other C commands or Tcl procedures from within
    Tcl scripts or C programs.
  * it uses Tcl regular expressions. That means you don't have to learn
    another regexp language.
  * it works with Tcl namespaces
  * the generated lexer commands can be used in one pass or
    incrementally, because they maintain state information. That way,
    several instances of the same lexer (eg a HTML parser) can run at the
    same time in distinct call frames and maintain distinct states (local
    variables...). Lexer need not be specially designed in order to be
    used incrementally, the same lexer can transparently be used in one
    pass or incrementally. This feature is especially useful when
    processing text from a file or an Internet socket (Web pages for
    example), when data is not necessarily available at the beginning of
    the processing.

 VERSION

 The current tcLex version is 1.1a1. The suffix "a1" means "alpha 1",
 that means that this version is the first fature-incomplete release of
 the future 1.1, extending and correcting the previous 1.0. The file
 changes.txt describes the changes made between the first version of
 tcLex and the current version. Although it is alpha software, it brings
 more bugs corrections than new ones ;-). In this case, alpha means that
 many planned features are not yet implemented, and documentation may be
 incomplete. Most of the useful info is in the file changes.txt. The
 file TODO.txt contains planned features that needs to be implemented.

 WHERE TO GET TCLEX

 Home Page:
 http://www.multimania.com/fbonnet/Tcl/tcLex/index.en.htm

 Distribution files:
  - http://www.multimania.com/fbonnet/pub/tcLex11a1.zip
    (sources and Windows binaries for Tcl8.0p2 and Tcl8.1a2)

  - http://www.multimania.com/fbonnet/pub/tcLex1.1a1.tar.gz
    (Unix sources)

 INSTALLATION, LICENSE, ETC.

 The file README.txt of the distribution contains information about the
 installation, compilation and use of tcLex. Read it carefully.
 The file license.txt describes the license that covers tcLex. It is
 very close to the Tcl/Tk license.

 I'd appreciate that every tcLex user send me a mail so I can keep track
 of the number of users for this software, in a purely informative goal.
 I won't make any use of these other than statistic.
 Feel free to send any comment or bug report to frederic.bonnet@ciril.fr.
 tcLex is likely to be improved depending on users feedback.

 Starting with this version, I'll try to release new versions of tcLex
 about once a week, following the Open Source principle: "release early,
 release often".

 --
 Frédéric BONNET                        frederic.bonnet@ciril.fr
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 "Theory may inform, but Practice convinces"
                                                     George Bain

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