...and the configure script doesn't fail if it doesn't find lex or flex.
I suspect the reason AM_PROG_LEX just sets LEX to ":" if it doesn't find
lex or flex, raher than failing, is to allow releases to be built on
systems without lex or flex, with the output of lex or flex being included
in the source tarball. Unfortunately that doesn't work well if you're
building from SVN, as those *aren't* in the SVN tree (so that you don't
get people updating the .l file and forgetting to check in the updated .c
file - and don't get problems with .c files on UN*X being different from
.c files on Windows; at least some versions of flex, as I remember,
generated, on UN*X, code that included <unistd.h>, which should be
available on all modern UN*Xes but is not available in all Windows
compilation environments).
So I'm not sure there's a good fix for this.
Maybe best fix for this is adding a comment on (f)lex to the INSTALL file?
I made a patch for this. Since this is my first (but quite simple) patch
for ethereal please feel free to tell me if something is wrong with it.
Or if you think it's not good adding this note to INSTALL.
Greetings
Björn
Index: INSTALL
===================================================================
--- INSTALL (revision 12494)
+++ INSTALL (working copy)
@@ -50,7 +50,14 @@
to get header files, a non-shared library, and the man page.
Similarly, Red Hat 5.x users will need to install a "libpcap-devel"
.rpm to go along with the "libpcap" .rpm.
-
+
+ -------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Note: When building ethereal from current subversion sources, you
+ will also need either lex or flex (the fast lexical analyzer
+ generator) package installed. If your distribution does not
+ have it you'll can find it at http://lex.sourceforge.net
+ -------------------------------------------------------------------
+
4. Run './configure' in the Ethereal distribution directory.
Running './configure --help' displays a list of options.
The file 'INSTALL.configure' contains general instructions for
