[Flex-help] Does YY_FATAL_ERROR require a call to exit?

[Albert C. <ch...@ll...>]

Hi,

I maintain a library that uses flex to parse some input queries from a
user.  In the event of a memory allocation or other major issue in this
library, an appropriate error code is passed back up to the caller/user.

Unknown to me until recently, generated code in flex can fatally call
exit() on a memory allocation error (and it seems other major issues).
It's through the yy_fatal_error() function and the YY_FATAL_ERROR macro.

While the YY_FATAL_ERROR macro can be redefined, it seems that it is
always assumed it will call exit()?  At the minimum, it seems
YY_FATAL_ERROR is called by multiple functions w/ different return
types.  So I don't think I can change YY_FATAL_ERROR() to error out
cleanly by return some standard return code.

We'd prefer to pass an error up the caller/user like usual, but can't
seem to find a way.  I imagine this has been solved before, but am
failing to see it and searching the web doesn't seem to offer me a
solution.  Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with this?

Thanks,

Al

-- 
Albert Chu
ch...@ll...
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory