line continuation: once more

I am trying to write a lexer/parser to parse aut-num objects using
lex/yacc. With the currect line continuation rule, one needs to look
ahead as many as 12 tokens to decide whether the next line is a
continuation of the current line. Not a simple task (yacc looks ahead
only one token, lex can do more hacks).

With this current rule, life is very simple for the database software
since it does not have to know of line continuations. As long as the
tools are concerned, life is hell.

Can we change this rule to sh style continuation with \\n. Since ripe
database is stored as an ascii file, non-true \n's after \ may cause
some problems with the existing database software. Does it? If it
does, can some one comment on how much work is involved in fixing
this? Can someone volunteer to fix it? Pehaps from the RA-TEAM?

Cengiz

-- 
Cengiz Alaettinoglu       Information Sciences Institute
(310) 822-1511            University of Southern California
http://www.isi.edu/div7/people/cengiz.home



-------- Logged at  Mon Nov 13 15:47:11 MET 1995  ---------