How to compile LEX YACC files on Windows

Question

I m having Lex and YACC files to parse my files   l file and  y file    How to compile those files and how to make equivalent  c file for them in windows platform

User · Answer

What you  probably want  are Flex 2 5 4  some people are now  maintaining  it and producing newer versions  but IMO they ve done more to screw it up than fix any real shortcomings  and byacc 1 9  likewise    Edit 2017-11-17  Flex 2 5 4 is not available on Sourceforge any more  and the Flex github repository only goes back to 2 5 5  But you can apparently still get it from a Gnu ftp server at ftp   ftp gnu org old-gnu gnu-0 2 src flex-2 5 4 tar gz    Since it ll inevitably be recommended  I ll warn against using Bison  Bison was originally written by Robert Corbett  the same guy who later wrote Byacc  and he openly states that at the time he didn t really know or understand what he was doing  Unfortunately  being young and foolish  he released it under the GPL and now the GPL fans push it as the answer to life s ills even though its own author basically says it should be thought of as essentially a beta test product -- but by the convoluted reasoning of GPL fans  byacc s license doesn t have enough restrictions to qualify as  free

User · Answer

Also worth noting that WinFlexBison has been packaged for the Chocolatey package manager. Install that and then go:

choco install winflexbison

...which at the time of writing contains Bison 2.7 & Flex 2.6.3.

There is also winflexbison3 which (at the time of writing) has Bison 3.0.4 & Flex 2.6.3.

User · Answer

I was having the same problem  it has a very simple solution  Steps for executing the  Lex  program   Tools- gt  Lex File Compiler  Tools- gt  Lex Build  Tools- gt  Open CMD  Then in command prompt type  name of file exe  example- gt  1 exe  Then entering the whole input press Ctrl   Z and press Enter   Example

User · Answer

the easiest method is to download and install cygwin and download gcc and flex packages during installation. Then to run a lex file for eg. abc.l

we write

flex abc.l
gcc lex.yy.c -o abc.exe
./abc.exe

User · Answer

Go for the full installation of Git for windows  with Unix tool   and bison and flex would come with it in the bin folder

User · Answer

As for today  2011-04-05  updated 2017-11-29  you will need the lastest versions of    flex-2 5 4a-1 exe bison-2 4 1-setup exe After that  do a full install in a directory of your preference without spaces in the name  I suggest C  GnuWin32  Do not install it in the default  C  Program Files  x86  GnuWin32  because bison has problems with spaces in directory names  not to say parenthesis  Also  consider installing Dev-CPP in the default directory  C  Dev-Cpp  After that  set the PATH variable to include the bin directories of gcc  in C  Dev-Cpp bin  and flex bison  in C  GnuWin32 bin   To do that  copy this    C  Dev-Cpp bin C  GnuWin32 bin and append it to the end of the PATH variable  defined in the place show by this figure   If the figure is not in good resolution  you can see a step-by-step here  Open a prompt  cd to the directory where your   l  and   y  are  and compile them with    flex hello l bison -dy hello y gcc lex yy c y tab c -o hello exe      You will be able to run the program  I made the sources for a simple test  the infamous Hello World    Hello l       include  y tab h  int yyerror char  errormsg              hi   oi    n          return HI       tchau   bye    n      return BYE                            yyerror  Unknown char            int main void       yyparse       return 0     int yywrap void       return 0     int yyerror char  errormsg        fprintf stderr    s n   errormsg       exit 1       Hello y       include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt stdlib h gt  int yylex void   int yyerror const char  s         token HI BYE      program            hi bye            hi               HI       printf  Hello World n                  bye              BYE      printf  Bye World n    exit 0                    Edited  avoiding  warning  implicit definition of yyerror and yylex     Disclaimer  remember  this answer is very old  since 2011   and if you run into problems due to versions and features changing  you might need more research  because I can t update this answer to reflect new itens  Thanks and I hope this will be a good entry point for you as it was for many   Updates  if something  really small changes  needs to be done  please check out the official repository at github  https   github com drbeco hellex  Happy hacking

User · Answer

There are ports of flex and bison for windows here  http   gnuwin32 sourceforge net   flex is the free implementation of lex  bison is the free implementation of yacc

User · Answer

There s always Cygwin

User · Answer

You can find the latest windows version of flex  amp  bison here  http   sourceforge net projects winflexbison

[windows] How to compile LEX/YACC files on Windows?

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