bisonc++

Bison-style parser generator for C++

Bisonc++ was designed after `bison++', created by Alain Coetmeur. Bisonc++ adds to bison++ a cleaner class-design, using a base-class to communicate lexical tokens to a lexical scanner. Since bisonc++ generates the parser class as well as the parsing function. The class can easily be provided with additional members without needing polymorphic functions. Consequently, classes generated by bisonc++ have no virtual members and actually have but one public member: parse(), replacing the old-style bison and bison++ yyparse() function. Bisonc++ offers many options, among which an option to define classes generated by bisonc++ in a separate namespace. This allows developers to define additional symbols, even outside of the class generated by bisonc++, without encountering name-collision problems. With bisonc++, artificial means to prevent name-collisions, like bison and bison++'s yy-convention are not required anymore when using bisonc++. Bisonc++ merely generates C++ code. If C code is required, bison should be used. Bisonc++'s grammar requirements are highly compatible with bison's requirements, so converting a bison grammar into a bisonc++ grammar should be fairly simple. In addition to the bisonc++ parser generator itself and several skeleton files, the package contains an extensive man-page, a full manual rewritten after the original bison manual, and several examples. Some history: Bisonc++ versions 0.98 is a complete rewrite of an LALR(1) parser generator, as described in Aho, Sethi and Ullman's (1986) book `Compilers' (a.k.a. the `Dragon Book'). Version 0.98 was completed in May 2005. Another major rewrite was completed one year later, May 2006, resulting in version 1.00.