#79 configure does not fail when flex is not found

[Sam Hanes]

When neither flex or lex is available on the system, the configure script does not fail but produces a lib/Makefile which will fail at build time because the LEX variable is empty. It would be better if configure failed with a helpful message.

[DaveP]

OK with commit r2005 to the SVN the configure script will now fail with a message if flex and lex or bison are missing

[Frank Mori Hess]

It was the original intent that it does not fail. Neither flex nor lex
should be needed to build releases, as they included the outputs of
flex/lex pregenerated. It's fine if you don't want to pregenerate the
flex/lex stuff any more though.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 5:37 AM DaveP dpenkler@users.sourceforge.net wrote:

OK with commit r2005 to the SVN the configure script will now fail with a
message if flex and lex or bison are missing

---

• [bugs:#79] https://sourceforge.net/p/linux-gpib/bugs/79/ configure
  does not fail when flex is not found*

Status: open
Group: v1.0 (example)
Created: Fri Feb 11, 2022 06:53 AM UTC by Sam Hanes
Last Updated: Fri Feb 11, 2022 06:53 AM UTC
Owner: nobody

When neither flex or lex is available on the system, the configure script
does not fail but produces a lib/Makefile which will fail at build time
because the LEX variable is empty. It would be better if configure failed
with a helpful message.

---

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[Frank Mori Hess]

And to elaborate, when lex is not found it was supposed to point at the
"missing" script, which prints an error at build time if there is an
attempt to actually use it.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 9:01 AM Frank Mori Hess fmh6jj@gmail.com wrote:

It was the original intent that it does not fail. Neither flex nor lex
should be needed to build releases, as they included the outputs of
flex/lex pregenerated. It's fine if you don't want to pregenerate the
flex/lex stuff any more though.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 5:37 AM DaveP dpenkler@users.sourceforge.net
wrote:

OK with commit r2005 to the SVN the configure script will now fail with a
message if flex and lex or bison are missing

---

• [bugs:#79] https://sourceforge.net/p/linux-gpib/bugs/79/ configure
  does not fail when flex is not found*

Status: open
Group: v1.0 (example)
Created: Fri Feb 11, 2022 06:53 AM UTC by Sam Hanes
Last Updated: Fri Feb 11, 2022 06:53 AM UTC
Owner: nobody

When neither flex or lex is available on the system, the configure
script does not fail but produces a lib/Makefile which will fail at
build time because the LEX variable is empty. It would be better if
configure failed with a helpful message.

---

Sent from sourceforge.net because you indicated interest in
https://sourceforge.net/p/linux-gpib/bugs/79/

To unsubscribe from further messages, please visit
https://sourceforge.net/auth/subscriptions/

[DaveP]

So that configure does not complain for distribution tarball users you need to use

./configure --enable-maintainer-mode

to get the configure failure behaviour on missing flex and lex or bison when building from SVN

[DaveP]

OK to enable the invocation of the "missing" script I changed the AC_PROG_LEX([noyywrap]) to AM_PROG_LEX. This way it will only complain (nicely) upon make.

[Sam Hanes]

I was indeed building from SVN, and not requiring flex and bison in configure makes sense now that I know you're pre-building the generated sources for the tarballs.

I've tested r2008 and confirmed that configure still succeeds when flex and bison are missing (even with --enable-maintainer-mode) and that now it correctly points them at missing so that when make tries to use them you get a nice error message instead of the confusing ibConfLex.c not found errors I was getting before.

Thanks! That was a much faster response than I was expecting from a project that says it's in maintenance mode.