Re: PHP support

[Chris Morley]

Hello Akim,

> > I have a project where I am evaluating moving a parser from C++ to PHP.
>
> Wow.  I'm curious: what's the goal?

It is for a parser for a play be email game.

> > $$$ -> $
> > $$$$ -> $$
> > @@@ -> @
>
> Why not.  I have no strong opinion.  Yet \$ would have seemed more natural
> to me.  \$1, \$\$, address@hidden  What do you think?

I wondered the same thing, I don't have a strong opinion either.

I only picked $$$ because it is slightly easier to type than \$ IMO (on a UK 
keyboard).

> One problem with \ is that then we need a means to escape it itself,
> such as \\.

I don't think so, you only need to (greedy) match digraphs "\$" & "\@" and 
handle "\" as now.

e.g. flex rules
"\\$" obstack_sgrow (&obstack_for_string, "$][");
"\\@" obstack_sgrow (&obstack_for_string, "@@");


Single \ is used in C & PHP (e.g. namespaces) - requiring \\ to escape \ 
could break existing C macros.

> > This seems tidier to me than the PHP specific ifs in the scfc/bison_php 
> > code.
> > It might be helpful to add this to the release with a argument to enable 
> > it.
>
> I'm not sure the argument to enable is needed.

Sure, as I don't think it can break existing C/C++ grammar file actions.

Chris