Re: flex snapshot/beta

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, 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.

That's true, but even so, it's still usual practice to not impose these
hazards onto people getting a tarballed snapshot.  Only people working
directly with CVS checkouts are supposed to need all the auto* tools. They
may even need GNU make and GCC for some of the trickier aspects.

Avoiding this is what the "make dist" machinery provided by automake is
largely about: enabling a software maintainer to build a correctly
self-contained tarball out of a CVS working directory, quickly.  It'll
include automatically built dependencies from the .dep subdirectory(s)
into the Makefile.in(s), and make sure all the time stamps of the
auto*-generated files are correctly ordered, so the tarball won't require
the user to have auto* tools.

> So, you shouldn't need perl.

He will, if he's running automake or modern autoconf (2.53 was released a
day or two ago).

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (address@hidden)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.