Quex offers a set of compile options that can be set by specifying them via the -D flag of the C-compiler. No explicit setting is necessary to create a working analyzer. The options, though, allow to configure and fine tune the lexical analyzer engine. The compile options split into the following groups
These macros can either be defined or not. If they are defined they trigger a certain behavior. All macros of this group have a sibling of the shape:
QUEX_OPTION_ ... _DISABLED
If this option is set than any setting is outruled, even those that have been set by quex. To disable asserts for example the compiler is called like this:
$CC ... -DQUEX_OPTION_ASSERTS_DISABLED
The disablement of asserts is, by the way, essential to high performance lexical analysis.
These macros contain a value that is expanded in the code of quex. This can for example be used to set the buffer size with:
$CC ... -DQUEX_SETTING_BUFFER_SIZE=4096
By means of those macros types are defined. The following overides quex’s definition for the internal character type:
$CC ... -DQUEX_TYPE_CHARACTER=UChar
None of the following compile options is necessary to get a working analyser. Indeed, many of them are already controlled by quex. Nevertheless, they provide toolset for fine tuning or adaptions to less regular system constraints.