K&R II YACC grammar (was: Yacc probs w/ANSI-C)

Shankar Unni shankar at hpclscu.HP.COM
Thu Jul 6 06:45:09 AEST 1989


> Is anyone else worried about the ethical question here?  Section
> A13 really seems to encourage you to type it in, feed it to YACC,
> and use it in your compiler ("This grammar can be transformed
> mechanically into input acceptable to an automatic parser-
> generator.") yet the copyright page contains the usual "No part
> of this publication may be... stored in a retrieval system... in
> any form or by any means..." etc.  (No criticism of Robert; I'm
> sure many others have done the same.)  Any comments?

No, I don't see this as an ethical problem.  This is where we draw the
distinction between "an idea" and "the expression of an idea". In my
opinion, a YACC grammar leans more towards an idea, rather than an
expression thereof (after all, a grammar is not just a matter of opinion).

If you feel uncomfortable with this, I'm sure you can type it in and then
inside vi, do ":%s/\<\([a-zA-Z]\)/my_&/g".
-----
Shankar.



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