Re: GLR parsers and locations

[Paul Hilfinger]

> > I have checked in the following patch for the location-tracking....
>
> Thanks. Unfortunately I can't try it since the autoconf versions on
> all machines I work on are too old and it doesn't seem easy to
> install the current version (lost of cryptic errors etc.). 

Look under "Assorted Software" in http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~hilfingr  


FLAME ON:

Frank has just raised an issue that I've raised before: Bison really
should not depend on having cutting-edge versions of support tools
like autoconf, automake, and gettext!  I've downloaded and configured
GDB, GCC, and a number of other projects without having to upgrade 
these tools, and Bison's requirements are not anywhere near exotic
enough to justify this requirement. 

I understand that we have autoconf maintainers working on Bison, but
the laudable maxim "Eat your own dog food" does not imply "Make
everyone else eat your dog food, too"!  In general, inter-project
version dependencies like this ought to be avoided.  By all means make
sure that the latest auto{conf,make} works on the current Bison head,
but also make sure that some reasonably old version works as well.  I
have a version of autoconf that was installed about a year ago that
hasn't worked for Bison for many months.  Remember especially that a
good system administrator does NOT generally install the most recent
versions of support software, at least not immediately.

FLAME OFF

Paul