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[18/12/2009] What is Flex?
Flex is an acronym hat stands for “fast lexical analyzer generator.” Generally, Flex is an open source kind of program that is designed to easily and automatically generate scanners, which is also called tokenizers. These scanners have the ability to recognize lexical patterns embedded on text. Initially, Flex was written under the C programming language in 1987.Flex is intended for high performance online applications. This is deemed beneficial to web developers given the extent of its features and capabilities. The flex program has the ability to read the input files for a scanner to generate. In case no file name was give, it has its own standard input to produce the desired output. The said description is mainly given through pairs of regular expressions and C codes. These pairs of regular expressions are called rules. The output that Flex generates is called a C source file. By default, it is lex.yy.c that essentially defines the yylex () routine. The said file could be linked and compiled to a flex runtime library. This would make out an executable file. Once the executable is run, the input of regular expressions could be analyzed.
Today, Flex has become a highly preferred program for developers who want to have advanced internet applications. Before Flex was introduced, programmers were having a hard time dealing with the animation metaphor using traditional applications. Flex is mainly designed to minimize the plight of programmers by giving a more effective programming model and workflow that would be very convenient for web developers. It uses MXML language that gives a way to lay out and build some graphical user interfaces. Meanwhile, the use of ActionScript allows the interactivity of application, which is also the main language used in Flash Player.
Some of the traditional interface components of Flex used in website development include list boxes, buttons, tress, text controls, data grids, and layout containers, among others. In addition, graphs and charts are offered as an add-on. Some of the other features include form validation, drag and drop, animation effects, application states and other interactions. Some of the technologies usually compared with Flex are Ajax, Windows Presentation Foundation, JavaFX, Curl, and OpenLaszo.
Flex has become widely popular in the field of website development. However, detractors of this program are present as well. But it has been proven by a number of professional web design experts as a practical solution in creating high-end internet-based applications. Some software and program developers have also commercialized this program.
