Re: [vox-tech] another C question (lex/yacc for parsing input)

[Micah Cowan <micah@coMAPSwanbox.com>]

On Sun, Apr 08, 2001 at 05:57:14PM -0700, Mark K. Kim wrote:
> 
> PS: I personally like recursive descent (writing code directly in, for
> example, C, because of the control and my lack of confidence in my ability
> to regex an entire language, even if you do have the help of LEX/YACC :)

Well-written recursive-descent code has the distinct advantage of
being incredibly easy reading, but the disadvantage of often being a
bit slow compared to bottom-up implementations; and plus you have to
remember to watch for nasty left-recursion stuff.

OTOH, Bison code (as opposed to the C it generates :P) is pretty
readable too, and IMO a little easier to design with (once you've
learned it), because I can define my grammer in modified BNF like I
would anyway, and then simply add C actions to it and - voila! - I
have a parser!

Micah