Re: [Flex-help] gnu m4 1.4 required?

[Aaron S. <aa...@se...>]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:40:44 -0600, DESumera <des...@gm...> wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> I am new to Linux, and am also learning flex in one of my Computer
Science
> Classes. I have Ubuntu 8.10 and tried to install flex 2.5.35. When I
tried
> ./configure, I received an error saying that GNU m4 1.4 is needed. So I
> downloaded that, compiled and installed it, with positive results.
However,
> when I run ./configure again, I still have the same error. What do I need
> to
> do?
> 
> flex 2.5.35 and GNU m4 1.4 are in separate folders; is that a problem?

Well, if you _installed_ m4, then the binaries are now in /usr/bin or
/usr/local/bin. In that case, it doesn't matter that the source code is in
/home/desumera/m4-12345.

I'm going to swing a guess that when you installed your own m4, it indeed
is in /usr/local/bin, but there's still the older m4 in /usr/bin, which
flex is finding. Try this:

  /usr/bin/m4 --version

  /usr/local/bin/m4 --version

So actually I'm not sure how to tell configure how to look in an alternate
place for m4. That seems like an oversight to me, or I'm looking for the
wrong syntax. (./configure --with-m4=/usr/local/bin/m4 doesn't appear to
work for me.)

Aaron