1 | <sect2><title>Contents of Bison</title>
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2 |
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3 | <para>Last checked against version &bison-contversion;.</para>
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4 |
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5 | <sect3><title>Program Files</title>
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6 |
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7 | <para>bison and yacc</para></sect3>
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8 |
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9 | <sect3><title>Descriptions</title>
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10 |
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11 | <sect4><title>bison</title>
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12 |
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13 | <para>bison is a parser generator, a replacement for yacc. yacc stands for Yet
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14 | Another Compiler Compiler. What is bison then? It is a program that
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15 | generates a program that analyzes the structure of a text file. Instead of
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16 | writing the actual program a user specifies how things should be connected
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17 | and with those rules a program is constructed that analyzes the
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18 | text file. There are a lot of examples where structure is needed and
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19 | one of them is the calculator.</para>
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20 |
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21 | <para>Given the string :</para>
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22 |
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23 | <blockquote><literallayout> 1 + 2 * 3</literallayout></blockquote>
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24 |
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25 | <para>A human can easily come to the result 7. Why? Because of the structure.
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26 | Our brain knows
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27 | how to interpret the string. The computer doesn't know that and bison is a
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28 | tool to help it understand by presenting the string in the following way
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29 | to the compiler:</para>
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30 |
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31 | <blockquote><literallayout> +
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32 | / \
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33 | * 1
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34 | / \
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35 | 2 3</literallayout></blockquote>
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36 |
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37 | <para>Starting at the bottom of a tree and coming across the numbers 2 and
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38 | 3 which are joined by the multiplication symbol, the computer
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39 | multiplies 2 and 3. The result of that multiplication is remembered and
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40 | the next thing that the computer sees is the result of 2*3 and the
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41 | number 1 which are joined by the add symbol. Adding 1 to the previous
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42 | result makes 7. In calculating the most complex calculations can be
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43 | broken down in this tree format and the computer just starts at the
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44 | bottom and works its way up to the top and comes with the correct
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45 | answer. Of course, bison isn't only used for calculators
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46 | alone.</para></sect4>
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47 |
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48 | <sect4><title>yacc</title>
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49 |
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50 | <para>We create a bash script called yacc which calls bison using the -y
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51 | option. This is for compatibility purposes for programs which use yacc
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52 | instead of bison.</para></sect4>
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53 |
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54 | </sect3>
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55 |
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56 | </sect2>
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57 |
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