Re: Autoconf test for incompatible version of flex

Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:

> Greg Stark <gsstark(at)mit(dot)edu> writes:
> > This patch adds an autoconf test to check for the new incompatible version of
> > flex.
>
> It seems unlikely that we should cause configure to reject all future
> versions of flex... .31 may be broken but I think we should assume that
> they'l fix it.

I inquired about this problem elsewhere, it's not a bug, it's an API change.
Until postgres "ports" to the new API it won't work with newer versions of
Flex.

From the Debian maintainer of the flex package
(http://bugs.debian.org/199776):

> The signature of all functions has changed. flex has new
> command line options, and option parsing has changed (now also
> supports POSIX conventions optionally). Handles POSIXLY_CORRECT
> environment variable. Various i18n translations are included in the
> distribution. flex now works with recent bison versions
>
> This is not a single short lived change.
>
> I understand that this requires all packages using lex to
> massage their lexers to conform to the new behaviour of flex; but the
> gains in reduced complexity of the scanner and reentrancy and
> standards compliance are well worth it.

--
greg