How to get FsYacc and FsLex (FsLexYacc) on OS X

InstallingFsYaccFsLexOSX.md

Installing FsYacc and FsLex (FsLexYacc) on OS X

Step by step guide to getting FsYacc and FsLex for development on OS X.

Changes

• 2017-01-09: Updated guide to reflect latest version of FsLexYacc (7.0.3)
• 2016: Created

1. Install Mono

By doing one of these:

• Recommended¹: Via mono-project.com
• With homebrew (in the terminal): brew install mono

2. Get NuGet Package Manager (CLI)

Download nuget.exe to ~/fsharp.

3. Install FsLexYacc

Copy paste into a terminal:

cd ~/fsharp                      # move to the ~/fsharp directory
mono nuget.exe install FsLexYacc # install fslexyacc with nuget
ls                               # list which files are in the current directory

# Should output something like:
# FsLexYacc.7.0.3/  FsLexYacc.Runtime.7.0.3/ FSharp.Core.3.1.2.5/ nuget.exe

4. Create links to FsLex and FsYacc binaries

Copy paste into a terminal:

cd /usr/local/bin
echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nmono /Users/'$USER'/fsharp/FsLexYacc.7.0.3/build/fslex.exe $*' > fslex
echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nmono /Users/'$USER'/fsharp/FsLexYacc.7.0.3/build/fsyacc.exe $*' > fsyacc
chmod a+x fslex fsyacc

5. Link the runtime DLL to your ~/fsharp folder

The FsLexYacc.Runtime.dll file needs to be referred to when lexing and compiling your language,

# link the Runtime to your ~/fsharp folder (once):
ln -s "~/fsharp/FsLexYacc.Runtime.7.0.3/lib/portable-net45+netcore45+wpa81+wp8+MonoAndroid10+MonoTouch10/FsLexYacc.Runtime.dll" ~/fsharp

# then henceforth, you can use the following from your project directory
# (referring to the link you just made):
fsharpi -r ~/fsharp/FsLexYacc.Runtime.dll Absyn.fs FunPar.fs FunLex.fs Parse.fs

5. Profit!

You should now totally have FsLexYacc on your OS X computer, ready to create awesome languages and compilers!

Footnotes

1. When building from Homebrew, the Mono runtime gets odd parameters which sets tail-call optimizations to disabled for some reason, avoid this by using the downloadable installer from mono-project.

@steinzi Awesome thanks for your reply. I just got another issue when running fsi -r FSharp.PowerPack Absyn.fs ExprPar.fs ExprLex.fs as:

dotnet fsi -r FSharp.PowerPack Absyn.fs ExprPar.fs ExprLex.fs

Microsoft (R) F# Interactive version 12.0.4.0 for F# 6.0
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

For help type #help;;



error FS0078: Unable to find the file 'FSharp.PowerPack' in any of
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App/6.0.7
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.NETCore.App.Ref/6.0.7/ref/net6.0
 /Users/lwj/Downloads/todel/fs101
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/6.0.302/FSharp/

Exception by fsi.exe:
System.Exception: Error creating evaluation session: StopProcessingExn
   at Microsoft.FSharp.Core.PrintfModule.PrintFormatToStringThenFail@1439.Invoke(String message)
   at FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Shell.FsiEvaluationSession..ctor(FsiEvaluationSessionHostConfig fsi, String[] argv, TextReader inReader, TextWriter outWriter, TextWriter errorWriter, Boolean fsiCollectible, FSharpOption`1 legacyReferenceResolver) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsi.fs:line 3265
   at FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Shell.FsiEvaluationSession.Create(FsiEvaluationSessionHostConfig fsiConfig, String[] argv, TextReader inReader, TextWriter outWriter, TextWriter errorWriter, FSharpOption`1 collectible, FSharpOption`1 legacyReferenceResolver) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsi.fs:line 3594
   at System.Lazy`1.ViaFactory(LazyThreadSafetyMode mode)
   at System.Lazy`1.ExecutionAndPublication(LazyHelper executionAndPublication, Boolean useDefaultConstructor)
   at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()
   at System.Lazy`1.get_Value()
   at Sample.FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Main.evaluateSession(String[] argv) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsimain.fs:line 270

Just wondering if maybe you met this error before?

@steinzi Awesome thanks for your reply. I just got another issue when running fsi -r FSharp.PowerPack Absyn.fs ExprPar.fs ExprLex.fs as:

dotnet fsi -r FSharp.PowerPack Absyn.fs ExprPar.fs ExprLex.fs

Microsoft (R) F# Interactive version 12.0.4.0 for F# 6.0
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

For help type #help;;



error FS0078: Unable to find the file 'FSharp.PowerPack' in any of
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App/6.0.7
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.NETCore.App.Ref/6.0.7/ref/net6.0
 /Users/lwj/Downloads/todel/fs101
 /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/6.0.302/FSharp/

Exception by fsi.exe:
System.Exception: Error creating evaluation session: StopProcessingExn
   at Microsoft.FSharp.Core.PrintfModule.PrintFormatToStringThenFail@1439.Invoke(String message)
   at FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Shell.FsiEvaluationSession..ctor(FsiEvaluationSessionHostConfig fsi, String[] argv, TextReader inReader, TextWriter outWriter, TextWriter errorWriter, Boolean fsiCollectible, FSharpOption`1 legacyReferenceResolver) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsi.fs:line 3265
   at FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Shell.FsiEvaluationSession.Create(FsiEvaluationSessionHostConfig fsiConfig, String[] argv, TextReader inReader, TextWriter outWriter, TextWriter errorWriter, FSharpOption`1 collectible, FSharpOption`1 legacyReferenceResolver) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsi.fs:line 3594
   at System.Lazy`1.ViaFactory(LazyThreadSafetyMode mode)
   at System.Lazy`1.ExecutionAndPublication(LazyHelper executionAndPublication, Boolean useDefaultConstructor)
   at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()
   at System.Lazy`1.get_Value()
   at Sample.FSharp.Compiler.Interactive.Main.evaluateSession(String[] argv) in D:\a\_work\1\s\src\fsharp\fsi\fsimain.fs:line 270

Just wondering if maybe you met this error before?

Hey @liweijian, is it intentional that you added FSharp.PowerPack as-is to the fsi -r arguments?
Doesn't look right to me. I believe you should be referencing the FsLexYacc.Runtime, see 5. for an example invocation of fsi with reference to the runtime.

@AndreasHassing Nice! You made my day, thank you.

$ ln -s ~/fsharp/FsLexYacc.Runtime.10.2.0/lib/netstandard2.0/FsLexYacc.Runtime.dll ~/fsharp

$ fsharpi -r ~/fsharp/FsLexYacc.Runtime.dll Absyn.fs ExprPar.fs ExprLex.fs

Microsoft (R) F# Interactive version 11.0.0.0 for F# 5.0
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

For help type #help;;

[Loading /Users/lwj/Downloads/todel/fs101/Absyn.fs
 Loading /Users/lwj/Downloads/todel/fs101/ExprPar.fs
 Loading /Users/lwj/Downloads/todel/fs101/ExprLex.fs]