How to return function name with bison?

Question

I'm building a simplified C parser using bison and flex. I've written a grammar rule to detect functions in my Bison file, and I want the parser to send the name of the function to my C monitoring program. Here is an extremely simplified sample of what I've implemented :

my monitor program

/*monitor.h*/
#ifndef MONITOR_H
#define MONITOR_H

extern int noLig;
extern char* yytext;

#endif

/*monitor.c*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <monitor.h>
#include <project.tab.h>

int noLig=0;

int main (int argc, char * argv[]) {
    printf("flex-\n");
    int err_code=yyparse();
    if (err_code == 0) {
        printf("It went fine\n");
    } else {printf("It didn't go well\n");}
    return 0;
}

project.l file

%{
#include <stdio.h>
#include <monitor.h>
#include <project.tab.h>
%}

%%
"\"[a-zA-Z0-9]+"\"  {ECHO; yylval.str=yytext; return STR;}
[.,;=()\[\]\{\}]        { return yytext[0]; }

"char"      {ECHO; printf("-"); yylval.str=yytext; return TYPE;}
"int"       {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=yytext; return TYPE;}
"float"     {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=yytext; return TYPE;}
"double"    {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=yytext;return TYPE;}

[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]* {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str = yytext; return VAR;}

[ \t\n\b]+  {noLig++;}
"//".*      {}
.       {printf(":%cwhat is this",yytext[0]);}
%%

project.y file

%{
#include    <stdio.h>
#include    <monitor.h>
int yylex();
int yyerror ();
%}
%union {
    char *str;
    int i;
}
%define parse.error verbose
%type <i> INT
%type <str> TYPE STR VAR

%token TYPE INT STR VAR

%start Program
%%
Program: function_l
    ;

function_l: function
    | function_l function
    ;

function: TYPE VAR '(' param_prototype_ld ')' '{' instruction_l '}'
    {printf("\n\nbison-\n%s\n",$1);}
    ;

param_prototype_ld: /*empty*/
    | param_prototype_l
    ;

param_prototype_l: param_prototype
    | param_prototype_l ',' param_prototype
    ;

param_prototype: TYPE VAR
    ;

instruction_l: /*empty*/
    | VAR ';'
    | VAR instruction_l
    ;
%%
int yyerror (char* s) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Compilator3000:l.%d: %s\n", noLig, s);
}

test.c file

int main (int arg) {
    a;
}

It compiles alright, with no warning. However, when I run ./monitor < test.c, I get the following output :

flex-
int-main-int-arg-a-

bison-
int main (int arg) {
    a;
}
It went fine

Why does bison variable $1 returns the whole function block ? How can I get only the return type ? (In the end, my goal is to print the return type, function name, and the type of the arguments)

The contents of yytext changes with each match, and should be copied with a function like strdup. — kdhp

kdhp kdhp · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-31T11:18:56

The value of yytext is not guaranteed to persist, and to make yytext persist it must be copied to a separate buffer. This is often done using strdup:

...
"\"[a-zA-Z0-9]+"\"  {ECHO; yylval.str=strdup(yytext); return STR;}
[.,;=()\[\]\{\}]    { return yytext[0]; }

"char"      {ECHO; printf("-"); yylval.str=strdup(yytext); return TYPE;}
"int"       {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=strdup(yytext); return TYPE;}
"float"     {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=strdup(yytext); return TYPE;}
"double"    {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str=strdup(yytext);return TYPE;}

[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]* {ECHO; printf("-");yylval.str = strdup(yytext); return VAR;}
...

Though strdup can return NULL, a wrapper function can be used to make that failure explicit

char *
strdup_checked(char *str)
{
        char *p;

        if ((p = strdup(str)) == NULL) {
                perror("strdup");
                exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
        }
        return (p);
}

How to return function name with bison?

2 Answers