NAME

reflex -- regex-centric, fast and flexible lexical analyzer generator

SYNOPSIS

reflex [OPTIONS] [FILE]

DESCRIPTION

Generates C++ source code programs that perform pattern-matching on text. FILE is a lexer specification source file, usually with extension .l. Generates lex.yy.cpp unless option -o specifies otherwise.

OPTIONS

Scanner:

-+, --flex: generate Flex-compatible C++ scanner
-a, --dotall: dot in patterns match newline
-B, --batch: generate scanner for batch input by buffering the entire input
-f, --full: generate full scanner with FSM opcode tables
-F, --fast: generate fast scanner with FSM code
-i, --case-insensitive: ignore case in patterns
-I, --interactive, --always-interactive: generate interactive scanner
-m NAME, --matcher=NAME: match with boost, boost_perl, pcre2_perl, reflex, std_ecma, ...
--pattern=NAME: use custom pattern class NAME for custom matcher option -m
--include=FILE: include header FILE.h for custom matcher option -m
-S, --find: generate search engine to find matches, ignores unmatched input
-T N, --tabs=N: set default tab size to N (1,2,4,8) for indent/dedent matching
-u, --unicode: match Unicode . (dot), \p, \s, \w, etc and group UTF-8 bytes
-x, --freespace: ignore space in patterns

Generated files:

-o FILE, --outfile=FILE: specify output FILE instead of lex.yy.cpp
-t, --stdout: write scanner on stdout instead of lex.yy.cpp
--graphs-file[=FILE[.gv]]: write the scanner's DFA in Graphviz format to FILE.gv
--header-file[=FILE]: write a C++ header FILE in addition to the scanner
--regexp-file[=FILE[.txt]]: write the scanner's regular expression patterns to FILE.txt
--tables-file[=FILE[.cpp]]: write the scanner's FSM opcode tables or FSM code to FILE.cpp

Generated code:

--namespace=NAME: use C++ namespace NAME for the generated scanner class, with multiple namespaces specified as NAME1.NAME2.NAME3 ...
--lexer=NAME: use lexer class NAME instead of Lexer or yyFlexLexer
--lex=NAME: use lex function NAME instead of lex or yylex
--class=NAME: declare a user-defined scanner class NAME
--yyclass=NAME: generate Flex-compatible scanner with user-defined class NAME
--main: generate main() to invoke lex() or yylex() once
-L, --noline: suppress #line directives in scanner
-P NAME, --prefix=NAME: use NAME as prefix of the FlexLexer class name and its members
--nostdinit: initialize input to std::cin instead of stdin
--bison: generate global yylex() scanner, yytext, yyleng, yylineno
--bison-bridge: generate reentrant yylex() scanner for bison pure parser
--bison-cc: generate bison C++ interface code for bison lalr1.cc skeleton
--bison-cc-namespace=NAME: use namespace NAME with bison lalr1.cc skeleton
--bison-cc-parser=NAME: use parser class NAME with bison lalr1.cc skeleton
--bison-complete: use bison complete-symbols feature, implies bison-cc
--bison-locations: include bison yylloc support
-R, --reentrant: generate Flex-compatible yylex() reentrant scanner functions NOTE: adds functions only, reflex scanners are always reentrant
-y, --yy: same as --flex and --bison, also generate global yyin, yyout
--yypanic: call yypanic() when scanner jams, requires --flex --nodefault
--noyywrap: do not call yywrap() on EOF, requires option --flex
--exception=VALUE: use exception VALUE to throw as the default rule
--token-type=NAME: use NAME as the return type of lex() and yylex() instead of int

Debugging:

-d, --debug: enable debug mode in scanner
-p, --perf-report: scanner reports detailed performance statistics to stderr
-s, --nodefault: disable the default rule that echoes unmatched text
-v, --verbose: report summary of scanner statistics to stdout
-w, --nowarn: do not generate warnings

Miscellaneous:

-c, -n: do-nothing POSIX options
-?, -h, --help: produce this help message and exit
-V, --version: report reflex version and exit

Lex/Flex options that are enabled by default or have no effect:

--c++ default
--lex-compat n/a
--never-interactive default
--nounistd n/a
--posix-compat n/a
--stack n/a
--warn default
--yylineno default
--yymore default
--7bit n/a
--8bit default

DEPENDENCIES

None, except when option -m specifies an external pattern-matcher engine such as pcre2 or boost that requires the corresponding library.

DOCUMENTATION

The full documentation for reflex is maintained as a Doxygen-generated manual reflex/doc/html/index.html located in the source directory of the reflex installation. Or visit:

: <https://www.genivia.com/doc/reflex/html/index.html>

to browse the latest version of the reflex user guide.

COPYRIGHT

reflex is released under the BSD-3 license. All parts of the software have reasonable copyright terms permitting free redistribution. This includes the ability to reuse all or parts of the reflex source tree.

BUGS

REJECT is not functional and not available.

Report bugs at: <https://github.com/Genivia/RE-flex/issues>