Re: configure.in: Look for flex

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Kevin Ryde <address@hidden> writes:

> No, this shouldn't be an error.  The dist includes the generated C
> code so you don't need lex in a normal build.
>
> (You need lex if you change the ".l", and in a maintainer build maybe,
> so a configure check is good, but it shouldn't be an error.)

Since flex is needed when building from CVS and not needed when building
from a distribution, what about something like the following:

  if test "x$USE_MAINTAINER_MODE" = "xyes"; then
    AC_MSG_ERROR([flex not found.  See README.])
  else
    AC_MSG_WARN([flex not found but only needed when building from CVS.])
  fi

Then this means that the error message would only be triggered for
people who passed the `--enable-maintainer-mode' option to `configure'
(which /should/ be the case for people building from CVS, but I'm not
sure this is actually the case since I didn't even use it myself ;-)).

BTW, why is the flex-generated file included in the distribution?

Thanks,
Ludovic.