flex (was Re: [HACKERS] Installation procedure.)

"J. Michael Roberts" <mirobert(at)cs(dot)indiana(dot)edu> writes:
> - I needed to install flex (no surprise) -- the instructions are quite
> explicit, but, well, wrong: flex depends on bison. So you have to get
> and compile bison first.

BTW, does anyone understand *why* our lexer files require flex and not
just garden-variety lex? Would it be worth trying to make them more
portable?

Or perhaps we should ship pre-lexed derived files, as we do for the
larger grammar files?

Having to install bison & flex is probably the most annoying Postgres
prerequisite for people on non-Linux platforms, so I think it would
be nice to clean this up. I hadn't realized that you're essentially
forced to install both...

regards, tom lane