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(bison.info)Introduction

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Introduction
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   "Bison" is a general-purpose parser generator that converts a
grammar description for an LALR(1) context-free grammar into a C
program to parse that grammar.  Once you are proficient with Bison, you
may use it to develop a wide range of language parsers, from those used
in simple desk calculators to complex programming languages.

   Bison is upward compatible with Yacc: all properly-written Yacc
grammars ought to work with Bison with no change.  Anyone familiar with
Yacc should be able to use Bison with little trouble.  You need to be
fluent in C programming in order to use Bison or to understand this
manual.

   We begin with tutorial chapters that explain the basic concepts of
using Bison and show three explained examples, each building on the
last.  If you don't know Bison or Yacc, start by reading these
chapters.  Reference chapters follow which describe specific aspects of
Bison in detail.

   Bison was written primarily by Robert Corbett; Richard Stallman made
it Yacc-compatible.  Wilfred Hansen of Carnegie Mellon University added
multi-character string literals and other features.

   This edition corresponds to version 1.35 of Bison.