MKS Lex & Yacc Patch 1 is a maintenance update for MKS Lex &
Yacc 3.4. It includes the fixes listed in
Fixed Problems below as well as the
following new features:
The MKS Lex & Yacc Visual Studio add-in now supports Microsoft
Visual Studio 2005 as well as previously supported versions.
The additional command line utilities included in MKS Lex &
Yacc have been updated to the versions included with MKS Toolkit 9.0
Patch 4.
MKS Lex & Yacc simplifies the development of interpretive and
analytical software such as customized compilers and parsers.
By automating complex processes like user input translation,
MKS Lex & Yacc provides valuable aid to those who write compilers,
database query languages and text processing applications.
The 3.4 release of MKS Lex & Yacc resolves several problems as
discussed in the Fixed Problems
section. In addition, the following sections discuss specific
enhancements.
The MKS Lex & Yacc Visual Studio add-in now supports Microsoft
Visual Studio .NET 2002 and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 in
addition to Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0
Documentation for MKS Lex & Yacc is divided into two parts:
- HTML Help files
- Plain text reference pages
To properly read the online HTML Help files, you must have
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later installed on your system.
It does not need to be your default browser.
The HTML Help files provide the following documentation:
- Lex & Yacc Tutorial
- Lex Programming Guide
- Yacc Programming Guide
- Lex & Yacc Reference Pages
- MKS Lex & Yacc Visual Studio Add-In
You can access the online reference pages for the command line
utilities provided with MKS Lex & Yacc either through the
Help button of the Visual Studio add-in or by using the
command line man utility to view the plain text
reference pages. To access a command's reference page, type:
man cmd_name
For example, to get the reference page for the yacc
command, you would type:
man yacc
To access a miscellaneous information page, type
man 5 page_name
For example, to see the miscellaneous information page for
yacc, you would type:
man 5 yacc
In general, MKS Lex & Yacc is fully compatible with MKS Toolkit
for System Administrators, MKS Toolkit for Developers, and MKS Toolkit
for Interoperability. It is not recommended for use with MKS Toolkit
for Professional Developers and MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
due to conflicts with the versions of lex and
yacc provided with those products.
Getting the Correct Reference Page
Because all versions of the MKS Toolkit product install the plain
text reference pages for the SCO lex and yacc
utilities provided in MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers and
MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers, there are some issues with
viewing the correct reference pages.
On a system with both MKS Lex & Yacc and MKS Toolkit, typing
one of the following:
man lex
man yacc
displays either the plain text reference page for the SCO utility (if
MKS Lex & Yacc was installed first) or the MKS Lex &
Yacc utility (if MKS Toolkit was installed first).
To avoid any confusion, you should use the HTML Help version of the
reference pages provided in the MKS Lex & Yacc online documentation
or for the SCO versions, the reference pages in the MKS Toolkit
Utilities Reference.
Also, the HTML Help versions of the MKS Lex & Yacc reference
pages are not viewable with the MKS Toolkit man
-h command (once again, that gives you the SCO pages from
MKS Toolkit if it is installed). You can view them as described earlier
or by typing:
%ROOTDIR%\etc\help\lyref.chm
at the Windows command prompt or:
$ROOTDIR/etc/help/lyref.chm
at an MKS KornShell, MKS Bash, or MKS C Shell command prompt.
Getting the Correct Executable
Should you choose to install MKS Lex & Yacc and either MKS Toolkit
for Professional Developers or MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers,
you can avoid some of the conflicts created by specifying a full path
name when you run lex or yacc.
To run the MKS Lex & Yacc versions of the utilities, type one of
the following at a Windows command prompt:
%ROOTDIR%\mksnt\lex
%ROOTDIR%\mksnt\yacc
or one of the following at an MKS KornShell, MKS Bash, or MKS C Shell
command prompt:
$ROOTDIR/mksnt/lex
$ROOTDIR/mksnt/yacc
To run the SCO versions of the utilities provided with MKS Toolkit for
Professional Developers or MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers,
type one of the following at a Windows command prompt:
%ROOTDIR%\bin\lex
%ROOTDIR%\bin\yacc
or one of the following at an MKS KornShell, MKS Bash, or MKS C Shell
command prompt:
$ROOTDIR/bin/lex
$ROOTDIR/bin/yacc
MKS Lex & Yacc does not have any particular hardware requirements.
Any machine that is sufficient to run the underlying operating system
is sufficient. MKS Lex & Yacc runs on Windows
systems with Intel 32-bit, IA64, and Extended Architecture 64-bit
(such as x64 and AMD64) processors.
Normally, the MKS Lex & Yacc CD should autostart when you insert
it in your CD-ROM drive, prompting you for your installation choices.
If your CD does not autostart, select Start > Run and enter:
The installation screens guide you through the process of installing
Lex & Yacc.
When reporting a problem, you will need certain information
about your product, which you can find by running the
mksinfo utility.
Microsoft dropped support for Windows 95 as of November 2001
and for Windows 98 at the end of June 2003. For this reason,
MKS Lex & Yacc will not be officially supported on these operating
systems. MKS will continue to support Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0,
Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
Server 2003. Note, however, that references to unsupported operating
systems may still remain in some documentation. We will endeavor to
remove such references in time.
There are several other sources for additional information
about MKS products.
We have general product information, including technical
specifications, detailed utility listings, and datasheets at:
We have several additional articles, tutorials, and white
papers about using features of MKS products at:
Through the years, we have accumulated a lot of technical
details about MKS products and have put this
information in a searchable database at:
Our customers commonly ask certain questions. These questions
and their answers are in our Frequently Asked Questions pages at:
