lfs-book/appendixa/flex-desc.xml

<sect2><title>Contents of Flex</title>

<para>Last checked against version &flex-contversion;.</para>

<sect3><title>Program Files</title>
<para>flex, flex++ (link to flex) and lex</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>flex</title>
<para>flex is a tool for generating programs which recognize 
patterns in text.  Pattern recognition is very useful in many applications. 
A user sets up rules 
what to look for and flex will make a program that looks for those
patterns. The reason people use flex is that it is much easier to set up 
rules for what to look for than to write the actual program which finds 
the text.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>flex++</title>
<para>flex++ invokes a version of flex which is used exclusively for 
C++ scanners.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>lex</title>
<para>We create a bash script called lex which calls flex using the -l option.
This is for compatibility purposes for programs which use lex instead
of flex.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>Library Files</title>
<para>libfl.a</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>libfl</title>
<para>libfl is the flex library.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

</sect2>