lex(1) bug -- lex users BEWARE!

[R. Curtis Jackson]

Well, last year about this time I found a bug in yacc(1) [actually
in its documentation] that cost me three weeks of valuable time
to track down, since I assumed it was my program which was in error.

This year it is lex(1), same situation only I found this one quicker:

lex reserves a certain amount of space for its input buffer -- I haven't
taken the time to check how much -- that is left as an exercise for the
reader.  If you are trying to match some hellaciously long strings or,
like myself, you screw up and accidentally match a hellaciously long
string, you will get either a memory fault or a bus error in your
program.  This is because lex does not check to see whether it has
filled its input array and keeps merrily on writing into random
areas of memory.

I am going to get all the specifics on this problem to submit to the
Unix Hotline (although it has been over a year since I told them about
the bug in the yacc(1) documentation and I haven't seen that corrected).
If anyone is interested in more particulars, drop me a line and I will
send it -- the bug fix should be trivial once you know the problem.

By the way, could some lucky person who has the System V Release 2
Programmer's (not User's) Manuals look at the yacc(1) documentation and
see if anything is mentioned about token numbers over 1000 not being
allowed?  Maybe they did process the documentation MR and I just haven't
seen the results.

Thanks in advance,
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd clyde ]!burl!rcj