This is the initial release of flex, a replacement for the lex(1)
tool.  As the copyright indicates, this distribution can be freely
redistributed.

Some notes on the distribution:

    Yes, there are some niggling lex features which are not available which
    seem like they'd be easy to add.  They're not, or if they are then the
    straight-forward implementation of them would slow down the scanner.
    Unfortunately I am unable to do any further work on flex other than bug
    fixes, so if there's something you've just gotta have, you'd better
    be willing to dive into the code.  I'll be happy to give (fairly
    high-level) advice on how to proceed.

    The compressed tables have been tested pretty thoroughly in the past,
    though may be suffering from bit-rot.  The fast/full tables have been
    recently implemented and are more likely to have bugs.

    For a System V machine, add the #define "SV".  Not guaranteed to do
    the full job, but a step in the right direction.

    Flex has been successfully ported to Sun Unix and 4.3BSD Vax Unix.


The flex distribution consists of the following files:

	README		This message

	Changes		Differences between this release and the beta-test

	Makefile
	flexdef.h
	parse.y
	scan.l
	ccl.c
	dfa.c		flex sources
	ecs.c
	main.c
	misc.c
	nfa.c
	sym.c
	tblcmp.c
	yylex.c

	scan.c.dist	pre-flex'd version of scan.l

	flex.skel
	flex.fastskel
	fskelcom.h	skeleton scanner sources
	fskeldef.h
	fastskeldef.h

	flex.1		manual entry

	Timings		a brief note comparing timings of flex vs. lex

[  The following section is only true if you got the files from FTP
    to LBL, directly, and not from the more widely-distributed
    comp.sources.unix publication.  --Rich $alz
The files are packaged as a compressed shell archive, which in turn
contains seven shell archives.  Create a directory where you want flex
to live, cd there, and use

	uncompress flex.shar.Z
	sh flex.shar

	sh flex.shar.1
	sh flex.shar.2
	sh flex.shar.3
	sh flex.shar.4
	sh flex.shar.5
	sh flex.shar.6
	sh flex.shar.7

to extract them.
]

Either move {fskelcom.h,fskeldef.h,fastskeldef.h} into /usr/include
or edit {flex.skel,flex.fastskel,fskeldef.h,fastskeldef.h,scan.c.dist}
and wire in the full pathname of where you are going to keep the include files.

Decide where you want to keep {flex.skel,flex.fastskel} (suggestion:
/usr/local/lib) and move it there.  Edit "Makefile" and change the
definitions of SKELETON_FILE and F_SKELETON_FILE to reflect the full
pathnames of {flex.skel,flex.fastskel}.

To make flex for the first time, use:

    make first_flex

which uses a pre-generated copy of the scanner whose source is in flex.

Assuming it builds successfully, you can test it using

    make test

The "diff" should not show any differences.

If you're feeling adventurous, rebuild scan.c using various
combinations of FLEX_FLAGS, each time trying "make test" when
you're done.  To rebuild it, do

	rm scan.c
	make FLEX_FLAGS="..."

where "..." is one of:

	-ist -c
	-ist -ce
	-ist -cm
	-ist -cfe
	-ist -cFe

and testing using:

	make FLEX_FLAGS="..." test


Format the manual entry using

    nroff -man flex.1


Please send problems and feedback to:

	vern@lbl-{csam,rtsg}.arpa  or  ucbvax!lbl-csam.arpa!vern

	Vern Paxson
	Real Time Systems Group
	Bldg. 46A
	Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
	1 Cyclotron Rd.
	Berkeley, CA 94720

	(415) 486-6411