Re: [Flex-help] Compiling flex 2.6.4 from source

[David S. <arc...@da...>]

I finally got to the source of the problem.

I updated binutils into /usr/local, and this contained the "ar" command. 
Then when realining the /usr/local directory (as it was becoming mixed 
with /usr) I broke where "ar" looked for "libfl.so.2", and so running 
/usr/local/bin/ar always failed with that error.

Trick was to go back to /usr/bin/ar - the old verion which still worked. 
Then rebuild binutils with the updated /usr/local file structure which 
recreated "ar" correctly linked to libfl.so.2.

flex was also rebuilt then as well - and that worked fine. So problem 
now cured.

Any what I learn about this is I should have fixed the /usr/local file 
structure before building the updated OS.

Mea Culpa.

David.

On 31/08/2026 19:31, Will Estes wrote:
> What file did you start with?
>
> On Monday, 31 August 2026, 12:12 pm +0100, David Summers <arc...@da...> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm compiling flex 2.6.4. on my ancient armv5tl machine. The autoconfigure
>> and configure seem to work fine. However when I try and make:
>>
>> /bin/sh ../libtool  --tag=CC   --mode=link gcc  -g -O2 -version-info 2:0:0
>> -o libfl.la -rpath /usr/local/lib libmain.lo libyywrap.lo  -lm
>> libtool: link: rm -fr  .libs/libfl.so .libs/libfl.so.2 .libs/libfl.so.2.0.0
>> libtool: link: gcc -shared  -fPIC -DPIC  .libs/libmain.o .libs/libyywrap.o
>>   -lm  -g -O2   -Wl,-soname -Wl,libfl.so.2 -o .libs/libfl.so.2.0.0
>> libtool: link: (cd ".libs" && rm -f "libfl.so.2" && ln -s "libfl.so.2.0.0"
>> "libfl.so.2")
>> libtool: link: (cd ".libs" && rm -f "libfl.so" && ln -s "libfl.so.2.0.0"
>> "libfl.so")
>> libtool: link: ar cr .libs/libfl.a  libmain.o libyywrap.o
>> ar: error while loading shared libraries: libfl.so.2: cannot open shared
>> object file: No such file or directory
>>
>> However:
>>
>> file ./src/.libs/libfl.so.2.0.0 gives
>>
>> ./src/.libs/libfl.so.2.0.0: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version
>> 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked,
>> BuildID[sha1]=b8851f7a64c9d9d1794b4b91a0126023b5cf0fa2, with debug_info, not
>> stripped
>>
>> So a correct libfl.so.2.0.0 library does exist in the build package.
>>
>> So my problem seems circular, I need to install flex to get the libfl used
>> by much of the build environment, but I can compile flex to give the libfl,
>> because the make depends on libfl. So do I need to by hand copy the libfl
>> into /usr/local/lib? That seems a bit of a hack. Is there a better way to
>> resolve this dependancy?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> David Summers.
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Flex-help mailing list
>> Fle...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flex-help