Flex - a scanner generator - 1.3 Description

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## 1.3 Description

`flex` is a tool for generating scanners: programs which recognized lexical patterns in text. `flex` reads the given input files, or its standard input if no file names are given, for a description of a scanner to generate. The description is in the form of pairs of regular expressions and C code, called rules. `flex` generates as output a C source file, ``lex.yy.c'`, which defines a routine ``yylex()'`. This file is compiled and linked with the ``-lfl'` library to produce an executable. When the executable is run, it analyzes its input for occurrences of the regular expressions. Whenever it finds one, it executes the corresponding C code.

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