Re: Bison and C++

[Hans Aberg]

At 13.33 -0600 0-10-15, Richard Stallman wrote:
>    It is fact possible to have the top-node in C even though the rest is
>    written in C++:
>
>That feature is useful for people who want to write in C++, but we are
>not going to do that in Bison.  GNU Project policy is that programs
>should be written in C rather than C++ whenever possible.  Bison is
>going to remain a C program, overall.

Well, you are free programming Bison and whatever other GNU tools as you
wish. :-)

-- I merely provide the information that allows whoever is at the helms at
GNU to re-evaluate that old C dogma. :-) For the future, GNU will need some
kind of computer programming language strategy, though.

BTW, I just found out that the MacOS X already has GCC; those interested
can see
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/DeveloperTools/Compiler/CompilerTOC.h
tml GNU tools usually compile just as under any UNIX, I am told; Bison
included I figure. Bison & Flex seems to work nice in an GUI IDE, but it
strictly speaking, it will not be needed on any platform.

One question I think is interesting though, is if one can put info into the
debug .sym files so that it is possible to GUI debug the original .y and .l
files. -- It would make debugging a lot easier, and also make bottom-up
parsers more interesting as tools.

>The only place in Bison in which it is ok to use C++ would be an
>optional parser skeleton in C++, provided for the convenience of C++
>users.

Well, one might do something with that, but some synchronization with Flex
is needed, I think. As for Bison, it writes a dynamic stack I think, so
there one might use the C++ standard library stack class. Etc.

  Hans Aberg