Re: flex snapshot/beta

[Bruce Lilly]

"W. L. Estes" wrote:
> 
> > I hope the build process will be simplified.  Vern's flex could
> > be built by running configure and make, without the need for
> > specific versions of half a dozen obscure programs to do so.
> 
> Such are the hazards of cvs snapshots. Yes, when flex is released, all
> the autoconf/automake work will be included so that users don't have
> the problems you mention.
> 
[...]
> The GNU autoconf manual is quite explicit on autoconf's dependency on
> GNU m4. They've got a section in the manual on why they need it. (I
> can't evaluate their claims because I don't know enough about the
> source code.)

That may be so, but until the package is downloaded, one doesn't
know about the dependencies.

> > that it couldn't find perl! Perl?! I've never required perl
> > to build flex before.  So I installed perl version 5.00502,
> > which is apparently still not to autoconf's liking.  Total
> > of six packages downloaded to attempt to build one, and at
> > this point I've given up.
[...]
> Also, some optional utilities that come with Autoconf use Perl, TCL,
> and the TCL packages Expect and DejaGNU.  However, none of those
> are required in order to use the main Autoconf program.  If they are
> not present, the affected Autoconf utilities will not be installed.
> 
> So, you shouldn't need perl.

Autoconf (2.53) says:

checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl
Perl 5.00503 required--this is only version 5.00502, stopped at -e line 1.
configure: error: Perl 5.005_03 or better is required

"-e"?! looks like yet another autoconf bug...

> What platform are you working on?

UWIN. (see http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/)