How to compile LEX/YACC files on Windows?

As for today (2011-04-05, updated 2017-11-29) you will need the lastest versions of:

1. flex-2.5.4a-1.exe

2. bison-2.4.1-setup.exe

3. After that, do a full install in a directory of your preference without spaces in the name. I suggest C:\GnuWin32. Do not install it in the default (C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32) because bison has problems with spaces in directory names, not to say parenthesis.

4. Also, consider installing Dev-CPP in the default directory (C:\Dev-Cpp)

5. After that, set the PATH variable to include the bin directories of gcc (in C:\Dev-Cpp\bin) and flex\bison (in C:\GnuWin32\bin). To do that, copy this: ;C:\Dev-Cpp\bin;C:\GnuWin32\bin and append it to the end of the PATH variable, defined in the place show by this figure:
   
   If the figure is not in good resolution, you can see a step-by-step here.

6. Open a prompt, cd to the directory where your “.l” and “.y” are, and compile them with:

   1. flex hello.l
   2. bison -dy hello.y
   3. gcc lex.yy.c y.tab.c -o hello.exe

You will be able to run the program. I made the sources for a simple test (the infamous Hello World):

Hello.l

%{

#include "y.tab.h"
int yyerror(char *errormsg);

%}

%%

("hi"|"oi")"\n"       { return HI;  }
("tchau"|"bye")"\n"   { return BYE; }
.                     { yyerror("Unknown char");  }

%%

int main(void)
{
   yyparse();
   return 0;
}

int yywrap(void)
{
   return 0;
}

int yyerror(char *errormsg)
{
    fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", errormsg);
    exit(1);
}

Hello.y

%{

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int yylex(void);
int yyerror(const char *s);

%}

%token HI BYE

%%

program: 
         hi bye
        ;

hi:     
        HI     { printf("Hello World\n");   }
        ;
bye:    
        BYE    { printf("Bye World\n"); exit(0); }
         ;

Edited: avoiding “warning: implicit definition of yyerror and yylex”.

Disclaimer: remember, this answer is very old (since 2011!) and if you run into problems due to versions and features changing, you might need more research, because I can’t update this answer to reflect new itens. Thanks and I hope this will be a good entry point for you as it was for many.

Updates: if something (really small changes) needs to be done, please check out the official repository at github: https://github.com/drbeco/hellex

Happy hacking.