flexml-users — for users of FleXML - discuss setup, help, bugs, etc

[FleXML-Users] Flexml 1.5.1 is also out

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

Hello,

about one hour after 1.5, here comes 1.5.1. It removes the dependency on the
wget program to fetch some data we need during the tests, and distribute
this file instead.

Sorry for the noise,
Mt.

[FleXML-Users] Flexml 1.5 is out

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

Hello,

I just release FleXML version 1.5.=20

The main new feature is that it is now possible to specify the output files'
names (for the scanner, header and application). Just pass the name you want
as (optional) argument to the -S -H and -D option flags.

For flag optional arguments to work, I had to move from Getopts::Std to
Getopts::Long to parse the options. I hope I didn't break anything in the
process, but please don't hesitate to report any problem which may arise.

This version is also the occassion to release some bug fixes that William
did a few months ago (I didn't notice them, or I would have done a dot
release).


Enjoy, Mt.

[FleXML-Users] Flexml 1.4 is out

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

Hello,

we just released a new version today. We needed to have 2 flexml generated
parsers in the same project. So we added a -P option working just like the
flex one: it adds a prefix to the used symbol names.

We also eradicated a few little bugs on the way while introducing a whole
bunch of new, fresh ones.

Enjoy, Mt.

--=20
Better to have an approximate answer to the right question than a precise
answer to the wrong question.  --  John Tukey as quoted by John Chambers

Re: [FleXML-Users] Parsing PCDATA in chunks

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

Hi Timm,

I have run into this too, and looked at finding a solution a while ago.
I will check what I did and let you know.

Will

On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 00:11 +0100, Timm Baumeister wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> the buffering of PCDATA is currently implemented with a fixed size char 
> array with the effect that for large PCDATA blocks the parser ends up in 
> an assertion.
> 
> Would it be possible to have a call to a user defined function which 
> reports a chunk of PCDATA whenever a buffer overflow is going to occur 
> to free up the space?
> 
> I was thinking of something like:
> 
> #define BUFFERSET(P)  (P = next)
> #define BUFFERPUTC(C) (mycheck(next<limit), *(next++) = (C))
> #define BUFFERDONE    (BUFFERPUTC('\0'))
> 
> bool mycheck(bool b) {
> if (!b)
> {
>    char c = *next;*next='\0';
>    PCDATA_CALLBACK(bufferstack);
>    next=bufferstack;
>    *(next++) = c
> }	
> return true;
> }
> 
> and am wondering whether a reset of the buffer in the mid of a PCDATA 
> block might have any unforseen sideeffects concerning the parser.
> 
> Thanks in advance for clarification
> 
> Timm

-- 
William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.scientific.thomson.com

[FleXML-Users] Parsing PCDATA in chunks

[Timm B. <bau...@zi...>]

Hello,

the buffering of PCDATA is currently implemented with a fixed size char 
array with the effect that for large PCDATA blocks the parser ends up in 
an assertion.

Would it be possible to have a call to a user defined function which 
reports a chunk of PCDATA whenever a buffer overflow is going to occur 
to free up the space?

I was thinking of something like:

#define BUFFERSET(P)  (P = next)
#define BUFFERPUTC(C) (mycheck(next<limit), *(next++) = (C))
#define BUFFERDONE    (BUFFERPUTC('\0'))

bool mycheck(bool b) {
if (!b)
{
   char c = *next;*next='\0';
   PCDATA_CALLBACK(bufferstack);
   next=bufferstack;
   *(next++) = c
}	
return true;
}

and am wondering whether a reset of the buffer in the mid of a PCDATA 
block might have any unforseen sideeffects concerning the parser.

Thanks in advance for clarification

Timm

[FleXML-Users] Re: xslt question

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 16:38 +0100, Martin Quinson wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 25, 2005 at 03:44:23PM -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> > Hi Martin,
> > 
> > I have a question for you.  Have you ever used xslt?  What do you think
> > of it?  I am working on a presentation (sort of a sales pitch) for some
> > people I work with, on flexml.  Part of my talk will be a comparison
> > with xslt.

FWIW I did a comparison between flexml and xsltproc.  The test was to
extract the pcdata from a couple different elements.  The DTD has ~ 100
elements, a similar total number of attributes, and (I don't have a
specific measurement here) is not very complex -- generally simple
content models.  The "document" was 128MB; the root element in the DTD
is
<!ELEMENT db (header | issue | item | ref)+>
and there are about 150K (header | issue | item | ref) elements in the
test document.

Two points: xsltproc was >200 times slower on my box for this task than
what flexml gave; and the flexml-generated program was 20 times slower
than an egrep scan.

Re the latter point -- I suspect the problem is inherent in the flexml
parse model.  That *I assume* is LL(1), correct?  Why else would I have
had to increase my stack size to 20M (10M was not big enough for my
file)?  Is there an LR or LALR parser for XML out there?

Will


stats
-----
# get a baseline -- scan the file with egrep to find authors
egrep '<(primary)?author[^s]' /proj/data/WoS.2004000109 > xxx 
   0.38s user      0.38s system  93%    cpu 0.814 total

# use flexml-generated 'authors' program
./authors < /proj/data/WoS.2004000109 > xxx
  7.15s user       0.85s system  93%    cpu 8.521 total

# use comparable xslt stylesheet
xsltproc -o xxx testauth.xsl /proj/data/WoS.2004000109
  1618.41s user    11.26s system 63%    cpu 42:52.44 total

# How big was that input, anyway?
wc /proj/data/WoS.2004000109
  3098636  10465719 128457959 /proj/data/WoS.2004000109



-- 
William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.isinet.com

[FleXML-Users] Announcing flexml 1.3

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

Hello,

I just released the version 1.3 of FleXML. Here is the changelog:

flexml (1.3-1) unstable; urgency=low

  [William Dowling]
  (infrastructure)
  * Enhance main makefile to allow versionned installs
  * Various cleanups to the makefiles
  * Get a working "make test" (some of the tests themselves are still to be
    fixed)
  (generated parsers)
  * Don't allocate the statenames array over and over (plug memleak)
  * Try not to exaust the stack when possible

  [Ulrik Petersen]
  * Fix statenames array on terminaison (plug memleak)

  [Martin Quinson]
  (flexml.pl script)
  * Get paranoid on file open()/close().
  (infrastructure)
  * Let FleXML.html be valid XHTML1.1 (so that it can be used in tests)
  * Install the paper as documentation
  (debian package)
  * Fix the doc-base file (Closes: #303220).

 -- Martin Quinson <mqu...@de...>  Wed,  6 Apr 2005 12:27:04 +0200

You can find it on debian servers, or from the sourceforge download section:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34654


I hope you'll enjoy it, and please report all nasty bugs lowering your
pleasure.

Bye, Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

I finally found some time to devote to the project. Your changes wrt to
testing infrastructure work for me. And since I had a minor bug against the
debian package (packaging issue), I decided to release 1.3 and move the
development forward to 1.4 (or 1.3.1 if I did something wrong). I'll
announce 1.3 right after this mail.

Concerning the testing infrastructure, I think that the easiest could be to
make SUFF=3D the default, and let people wanting to use SUFF=3D-$(ver)
specifying it from the command line.

Want do you think about it?

Thanks again for your work,=20
Mt.


On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 11:46:54AM -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> It *should* have worked.  The correct instructions are
>   make SUFF=3D ; cd examples; make SUFF=3D
>=20
> I have checked in the files  xhtml-{special,symbol,lat1}.ent so now the
> test actually does work.  Thanks for your patience.
>=20
> Will
>=20
> On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 17:15 -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> > I have checked in changes so that
> >   make SUFF=3D ; cd examples; make
> > should work (i.e. first three tests print "OK" and last two print out
> > sensible results.)  I'm still getting a ton of warnings, the whole test
> > Makefile needs to be rethought, but at least now it is minimally
> > working.
> >=20
> > I'm not happy with the SUFF=3D bit being necessary for the tests to run.
> > Let me know if you have problems with this.

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

It *should* have worked.  The correct instructions are
  make SUFF= ; cd examples; make SUFF=

I have checked in the files  xhtml-{special,symbol,lat1}.ent so now the
test actually does work.  Thanks for your patience.

Will

On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 17:15 -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> I have checked in changes so that
>   make SUFF= ; cd examples; make
> should work (i.e. first three tests print "OK" and last two print out
> sensible results.)  I'm still getting a ton of warnings, the whole test
> Makefile needs to be rethought, but at least now it is minimally
> working.
> 
> I'm not happy with the SUFF= bit being necessary for the tests to run.
> Let me know if you have problems with this.
> 
> Will
> 
> 
-- 
William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.isinet.com

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

I have checked in changes so that
  make SUFF= ; cd examples; make
should work (i.e. first three tests print "OK" and last two print out
sensible results.)  I'm still getting a ton of warnings, the whole test
Makefile needs to be rethought, but at least now it is minimally
working.

I'm not happy with the SUFF= bit being necessary for the tests to run.
Let me know if you have problems with this.

Will


-- 
William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.isinet.com

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 12:35 +0100, Martin Quinson wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm completly lost here. I'm tweaking the makefile back and forth to try to
> get it testing something, in vain. If you have any solution leading to even
> a minimalist step forward, please commit it.

I have the "joke" tests working from the Makefile (though not with
debugging turned on, which for me causes a core dump in the
print_yy_stack() function).  But the larger test, which tries to parse
FleXML.html using
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd
is quite a failure.  The problem is that when shack checked in changes
to content of the the documentation in FleXML.html, the file became no
longer XML.  I will separate out the last revision of FleXML.html that
was also XML, into a different file, and make sure the test uses that
for input.

I'm not quite ready to throw out examples/* and replace it with some
real tests, but that is what needs to be done.

Will

-- 
William F Dowling
wil...@th...
www.isinet.com

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 03:42:20PM -0500, Dowling, Will (TS USA) wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 18:17, Martin Quinson wrote:
> > Hello,
> >=20
> > make test fails on my box. Is it just me or the lastest changes to allow
> > several versions to coexist broke it? [...]
>=20
> I am seeing this:
>=20
> $ make BASE_DIR=3D/tmp/foo test  =20
> Testing...
> make -C examples test
> make[1]: Entering directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
> Testing...
> ../flexml.pl  -vD -a my-show.act my.dtd
> FleXML version Id: flexml.pl,v 1.44 2005/02/23 23:08:16 mquinson Exp.
> Fetching URL <file:my.dtd>.
> Processing DTD in my.dtd.
> Post-processing DTD.
> Writing XML application onto `my-show.c'.
> Can't exec "./flexml-act": No such file or directory at ../flexml.pl
> line 1527.
> readline() on closed filehandle ACTIONS at ../flexml.pl line 1534.
> ../flexml.pl: Cannot close pipe to flexml-act: Bad file descriptor
> make[1]: *** [my-show.c] Error 9
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
> make: *** [test] Error 2
>=20
> I don't understand why this Makefile runs ../flexml.pl.  We should be
> testing what we just built, right?  If that is so, replace all
> "../flexml.pl" by "../$(FLEXML)" in examples/Makefile, and you get a lot
> farther. =20
>=20
> The next place it fails is at
>=20
> Fetching URL <file:xhtml-lat1.ent>.
> "xhtml1-transitional.dtd", line 29: URL <file:xhtml-lat1.ent> could not
> be fetched.
> make[1]: *** [xhtml-href.c] Error 2
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
> make: *** [test] Error 2
>=20
> Are we missing a file xhtml-lat1.ent?
>=20
> I don't know if it was the latest changes -- I don't normally run 'make
> test' -- so I don't know when it started failing.
>=20
> The good news is this:  When I run my own tests (not the examples/
> directory), everything seems to be working.

Hello,

I'm completly lost here. I'm tweaking the makefile back and forth to try to
get it testing something, in vain. If you have any solution leading to even
a minimalist step forward, please commit it.

I was even unable to do the basic step you describes. Ie, when changing all
=2E./flexml-ml occurence, the message I get is not at all the one you give.

I'm also puzzeled by the "MAIN PROGRAM" rules in example/Makefile. Do we
build a specific version of flexml for testing (and if so, who calls it) or
is this a leftover?

I consider the lack of testing as a showstopper for the next release (I'd
like to push out of the door since in brings some neat stuff such as stack
consumtion reduction).

Thanks for any help,
Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[Dowling, W. (TS USA) <wil...@th...>]

On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 18:17, Martin Quinson wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> make test fails on my box. Is it just me or the lastest changes to allow
> several versions to coexist broke it? [...]

I am seeing this:

$ make BASE_DIR=/tmp/foo test   
Testing...
make -C examples test
make[1]: Entering directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
Testing...
../flexml.pl  -vD -a my-show.act my.dtd
FleXML version Id: flexml.pl,v 1.44 2005/02/23 23:08:16 mquinson Exp.
Fetching URL <file:my.dtd>.
Processing DTD in my.dtd.
Post-processing DTD.
Writing XML application onto `my-show.c'.
Can't exec "./flexml-act": No such file or directory at ../flexml.pl
line 1527.
readline() on closed filehandle ACTIONS at ../flexml.pl line 1534.
../flexml.pl: Cannot close pipe to flexml-act: Bad file descriptor
make[1]: *** [my-show.c] Error 9
make[1]: Leaving directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
make: *** [test] Error 2

I don't understand why this Makefile runs ../flexml.pl.  We should be
testing what we just built, right?  If that is so, replace all
"../flexml.pl" by "../$(FLEXML)" in examples/Makefile, and you get a lot
farther.  

The next place it fails is at

Fetching URL <file:xhtml-lat1.ent>.
"xhtml1-transitional.dtd", line 29: URL <file:xhtml-lat1.ent> could not
be fetched.
make[1]: *** [xhtml-href.c] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/space1/proj-temp/flexml/flexml/examples'
make: *** [test] Error 2

Are we missing a file xhtml-lat1.ent?

I don't know if it was the latest changes -- I don't normally run 'make
test' -- so I don't know when it started failing.

The good news is this:  When I run my own tests (not the examples/
directory), everything seems to be working.


-- 
William F. Dowling
Thomson/ISI (www.thomsonisi.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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[FleXML-Users] Issue with make test?

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

Hello,

make test fails on my box. Is it just me or the lastest changes to allow
several versions to coexist broke it?

As usual, I barely understand what I see, and I may well be wrong. :)


Thanks, Mt.

[FleXML-Users] Re: [Flexml-commits] flexml skel,1.24,1.25

[Martin Q. <mar...@lo...>]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 06:04:45PM +0000, William Dowling wrote:
> Update of /cvsroot/flexml/flexml
> In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv6495
>=20
> Modified Files:
> 	skel=20
> Log Message:
> Fix memory leak reported in bug #1126171; thanks to Ulrik Petersen for pa=
tch.


> +static void cleanup(void)
> +{
> +    if (statenames)
> +        free(statenames);
> +}

I'd do a statenames =3D NULL afterward to make sure that it gets recreated =
on
need. But I may well be wrong...


Bye, Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 02:46:10PM -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> I have commited the changes discussed.  If you can think of a better way
> to allow >1 version to exist on a system at one time, go ahead and back
> these out and put that in.  Also did a few stray Makefile cleanups.

Looks good to me. If we define a variable=20
SUF :=3D -$(VER)
and use it, and then I can do a regular install with=20

make install SUF=3D

And then we should be both happy.

I'll be offline for a few days, see you when I come back.

Have a good one, Mt.
PS: I'm on the list...

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

I have commited the changes discussed.  If you can think of a better way
to allow >1 version to exist on a system at one time, go ahead and back
these out and put that in.  Also did a few stray Makefile cleanups.

Thanks,

Will

-- 
William F. Dowling
Thomson/ISI (www.thomsonisi.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 11:30:39AM -0500, Dowling, Will (TS USA) wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 19:56, Martin Quinson wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 12:38:29PM -0500, Dowling, Will (TS USA) wrote:
> > > I'd like to modify the Makefile a bit.  The principle goal would be to
> > > allow >1 version of flexml to exist on a system at the same time. [..=
=2E]
> >=20
> > I don't feel the need to add this by default to the code, but as an opt=
ion,
> > it would be welcome, I guess. Please make it a specific target of the
> > Makefile so that it doesn't trouble the other targets. [...]
> > You don't want to convert your ton of existing parsers right now, do yo=
u ? hehe.
>=20
> No parsers will have to be modified.  I'm only talking about modifying
> the installation location of various flexml components.  The output from
> 'make install' (setting the base directory to /tmp/foo) will be

[snip]

> Note /tmp/foo/bin/flexml still exists as a symlink to flexml-1.2.
> flexml.pl will be changed to make sure it picks up the default skel file
> from the new place where it was installed.

Yeah, that's what I understood. I'm only faintly interested in this becoming
the default mode of installation. If you manage to get it running as a
specific make target (ideally, without duplicating too much code), you
should commit it. You may even want to commit it anyway so that I can see i=
t.

If not, we will need the advice of something else (ie, I'm not a fan, but
it's only my advice).=20

> I'd also like to pull out the common definitions in Makefile and
> examples/Makefile into a single file Makefile.defs, then use
>   include Makefile.defs
>=20
> Any objections?  (Do non-gnu make programs handle "include"?)

I don't think so, because if so, automake would use it more extensively.=20
But I'm not sure we care about really prehistoric make :) I'd say it's a go=
od
idea. My last modifications to the Makefile were mainly hacks to get it
running quickly. Cleanup is really welcome.


Thanks for your time,=20
Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Dowling, W. (TS USA) <wil...@th...>]

On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 19:56, Martin Quinson wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 12:38:29PM -0500, Dowling, Will (TS USA) wrote:
> > I'd like to modify the Makefile a bit.  The principle goal would be to
> > allow >1 version of flexml to exist on a system at the same time. [...]
> 
> I don't feel the need to add this by default to the code, but as an option,
> it would be welcome, I guess. Please make it a specific target of the
> Makefile so that it doesn't trouble the other targets. [...]
> You don't want to convert your ton of existing parsers right now, do you ? hehe.

No parsers will have to be modified.  I'm only talking about modifying
the installation location of various flexml components.  The output from
'make install' (setting the base directory to /tmp/foo) will be

mkdir -p /tmp/foo/bin /tmp/foo/lib \
        /tmp/foo/share/man/man1 /tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2 \
        /tmp/foo/share/flexml-1.2 \
        /tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/html \
        /tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/examples
install -m555 flexml-1.2 /tmp/foo/bin/
install -m555 flexml-act-1.2 /tmp/foo/lib/
install -m444 skel /tmp/foo/share/flexml-1.2/
install -m444 flexml.1 /tmp/foo/share/man/man1/
install -m444 README NOTES TODO flexml-act.dtd EnlargeFlex.patch
/tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/
install -m444 FleXML.html  /tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/html/
rm -f /tmp/foo/bin/flexml
ln -s /tmp/foo/bin/flexml-1.2 /tmp/foo/bin/flexml
make -C examples install
make[1]: Entering directory `/links/extern/src/flexml-1.2/examples'
mkdir -p /tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/flexml/examples
install -m444 my.dtd my-show.act my-joke.xml my-joke2.xml my-joke3.xml
tricky.dtd tricky.act tricky.xml test.html
/tmp/foo/share/doc/flexml-1.2/flexml/examples/

Note /tmp/foo/bin/flexml still exists as a symlink to flexml-1.2.
flexml.pl will be changed to make sure it picks up the default skel file
from the new place where it was installed.

I'd also like to pull out the common definitions in Makefile and
examples/Makefile into a single file Makefile.defs, then use
  include Makefile.defs

Any objections?  (Do non-gnu make programs handle "include"?)

Thanks,

Will


-- 
William F. Dowling
Thomson/ISI (www.thomsonisi.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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Re: [FleXML-Users] generated parser declaration

[William F. D. <wil...@th...>]

On Tue, 2005-02-15 at 02:26, Martin Quinson wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 05:06:27PM -0500, Dowling, William (Will) (TS USA) wrote:
> > One limitation of the flexml-generated parser is that its prototype is
> > fixed within flexml:
> >   int yylex()
> > In order to pass in a parameter to the generated parser, I had to resort
> > to a flex command line that contained this (I am generating C++ code,
> > hence the class declaration)
> > 
> > -PLinksXML \
> > -DYY_DECL='"class LinksAPIStart; static LinksAPIStart *
> > private_Start_ptr; int LinksXMLlex(LinksAPIStart *LinksAPIStart_ptr)"' \
> > -DYY_USER_INIT='"private_Start_ptr=LinksAPIStart_ptr;"'
> > 
> > This trick allows me to refer to the parameter passed into the parser
> > (LinksAPIStart_ptr) using the name private_Start_ptr in my .act file.
> > [...]
> 
> [...] we also want to embeed several parsers in the same
> code, and that I was thinking about implementing the -P flag to flexml.
> 
> It does not look really related to your issue [...]

I think it is somewhat related; -P allows you to change the name of the
generated parser, as does modifying YY_DECL.  (-P also privatizes other
identifiers, which YY_DECL does not.)  YY_DECL also allows you to change
the signature (params and return type), which -P does not.  This part of
the design of flex is not as orthogonal as it could be.

Maybe a YY_DECL (and other user-settable #defines) should be passed
through from flexml into the generated flex input file?

Will

-- 
William F. Dowling
Thomson/ISI (www.thomsonisi.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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______________________________________________________________________

Re: [FleXML-Users] generated parser declaration

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 05:06:27PM -0500, Dowling, William (Will) (TS USA) =
wrote:
> One limitation of the flexml-generated parser is that its prototype is
> fixed within flexml:
>   int yylex()
> In order to pass in a parameter to the generated parser, I had to resort
> to a flex command line that contained this (I am generating C++ code,
> hence the class declaration)
>=20
> -PLinksXML \
> -DYY_DECL=3D'"class LinksAPIStart; static LinksAPIStart *
> private_Start_ptr; int LinksXMLlex(LinksAPIStart *LinksAPIStart_ptr)"' \
> -DYY_USER_INIT=3D'"private_Start_ptr=3DLinksAPIStart_ptr;"'
>=20
> This trick allows me to refer to the parameter passed into the parser
> (LinksAPIStart_ptr) using the name private_Start_ptr in my .act file.
>=20
> I sure would like a cleaner way to do this.  Any ideas?

It took me so long to answer because I'm really not sure to understand. What
I can tell you is that we also want to embeed several parsers in the same
code, and that I was thinking about implementing the -P flag to flexml.

It does not look really related to your issue, now that I look more in
detail to write this mail, does it? So I guess the answer is that I don't
have any better idea ;)

Sorry about that, Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 12:38:29PM -0500, Dowling, Will (TS USA) wrote:
> I'd like to modify the Makefile a bit.  The principle goal would be to
> allow >1 version of flexml to exist on a system at the same time.  I
> think this would require putting the 'skel' file in a directory with the
> version embedded in the path, for example
>   /usr/share/flexml/1.2/skel
>=20
> I would also have the installed executable be flexml-$(VER) and have a
> symlink in $(BINDIR) from flexml to flexml-$(VER) (mimicking what debian
> does with /etc/alternatives, but not requiring that.)
>=20
> Perhaps one would do similarly with the documentation and examples.
>=20
> What do people think about that?=20

I don't feel the need to add this by default to the code, but as an option,
it would be welcome, I guess. Please make it a specific target of the
Makefile so that it doesn't trouble the other targets.


You don't want to convert your ton of existing parsers right now, do you ? =
hehe.

Thanks for your time,
Mt.

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Dowling, W. (TS USA) <wil...@th...>]

I'd like to modify the Makefile a bit.  The principle goal would be to
allow >1 version of flexml to exist on a system at the same time.  I
think this would require putting the 'skel' file in a directory with the
version embedded in the path, for example
  /usr/share/flexml/1.2/skel

I would also have the installed executable be flexml-$(VER) and have a
symlink in $(BINDIR) from flexml to flexml-$(VER) (mimicking what debian
does with /etc/alternatives, but not requiring that.)

Perhaps one would do similarly with the documentation and examples.

What do people think about that? 

Will

-- 
William F. Dowling
Thomson/ISI (www.thomsonisi.com)
215-386-0100 x-1156

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[FleXML-Users] Announcing versions 1.1 and 1.2 of FleXML

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

Ups, I forgot to announce the previous version to the list, sorry about that.
Here are the changelogs:

flexml (1.2-1) unstable; urgency=low

  [Martin Quinson]
  * Add a \n after the error messages when not using quiet_parsers
  * Clarify the licence of the produced parsers. Thanks to Ulrik Petersen
    for proposing the patch, and to Kristoffer H Rose for forwarding it.

  [Arnaud Legrand]
  * Add a -b option to modify the default FLEXML_BUFFERSTACKSIZE.
    That is useful when you get an error like "Assertion next<limit' failed".

 -- Martin Quinson <mqu...@de...>  Sun, 13 Feb 2005 19:23:45 +0100

flexml (1.1-1) unstable; urgency=low

  The "back to life" version (hopefully).

  [Arnaud Legrand]
  * Fix a few bugs and make gcc happy.
  * Make flexml work with the current flex (closes: #192692, #192243).
  * Change the build-dep to flex and make lintian happy.

  [William Dowling]
  * Handle ']' at end of CDATA like: <![CDATA[val xxx]]]>;
  * Do not print to stderr: add primitive error message facility;
    [requests the user to pool for error messages with parse_err_msg()]
  * Allow multiple calls/multiple returns, so flexml-generated parsers
    can parse document sequences (>1 document in a stream);
  * Allow failure from all states (<*>) so flex scanner jammed does
    not occur.
  * Avoid using "new" as identifier since it breaks C++

  [Martin Quinson]
  (upstream)
  * Let the user decide whether they want to keep the parser quiet and use
    the second feature introduced by William above (flag -q), or if they
    want to stick to the old behaviour (by default).
  * Let the dist target work (and don't add the debian/ dir since flexml
    should't be a native package)
  * Do not include the header if it wasn't generated (Closes: #62172)
  (debian package)
  * Put myself as maintainer. Thanks and kudos to Kristoffer for his work on
    this neat tool.
  * Switch from the deprecated dh_installmanpages to dh_installman
  * Conflict with flex-old now that Arnaud fixed the issues
  * Build-dep on flex
  * Remove EnlargeFlex.patch from the debian package since this is
    integrated in the stable version of flex (!)
  * recognize the encoding attribute of the XML tag (Closes: #62171)

 -- Martin Quinson <mqu...@de...>  Thu, 10 Feb 2005 12:17:40 +0100

Re: [FleXML-Users] new checkins to flexml.pl and skel files

[Martin Q. <mar...@im...>]

Ok, I finally devoted some time to flexml. Sorry for the delay.

On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 09:30:44AM -0500, William F. Dowling wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 03:11, Martin Quinson wrote:
>=20
> >=20
> > I was reading the changes by curiosity mainly, and I have some question=
s.
> > (plus an extra changelog entry: do not use the "new" identifier since it
> > breaks in C++ ;)
> >=20
> > +enum {flexml_max_err_msg_size =3D 512};
> >=20
> > Why is flexml_max_err_msg_size an enum and not a const int? I understand
> > that it makes very little difference, but I would find the latter clean=
er,
> > wouldn't it?
>=20
> Just a habit of coding style consistent with local (where I work) code
> standard, historically arising from the need for the "enum hack" when
> using older C++ compilers. See Scott Meyers on this quoted at
> http://www.geocities.com/lgol27/CPlusPlus.htm.  (That's an answer, not a
> justification -- const int would be better. So feel free to change it if
> you want.)

I tried to change this, and had to revert the change since gcc complains
about the flexml_err_msg array being dynamically sized. It should be a
define, but defines are crude.

> > Would it be possible to create some sort of option somewhere stating wh=
ether
> > we're going to display the errors as some as they appear (former behavi=
our)
> > or if we put them into this mecanism, expecting the user to pool it from
> > there ?
> >=20
> > Or, more precisely, do we want to do so (since I know how to do so  ;)?
>=20
> As an option it would be OK.  My bias is toward writing library code, so
> I would prefer if the default was silence (not writing to stderr). You
> don't want your library writing to stderr -- that would make it less
> general and harder to document.

I added a -q option which goes to your direction, and left the default being
the previous behaviour.

I also fixed some long standing trivial bugs against the debian package. We
now only have a bunch of open bugs on sourceforge. I closed two of them, but
I unfortunately need some help for the remaining...

Please people, have a look at
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=3D34654&atid=3D411869
and see if you can fix some of them...


Thanks, Mt.