Adding a build-dependency on flex

[Milian Wolff]

On Saturday 18 June 2011 01:42:04 Nicolás Alvarez wrote:
> On 6/17/11, Milian Wolff <mail at milianw.de> wrote:
> > On Saturday 18 June 2011 01:12:48 Nicolás Alvarez wrote:
> >> Hi devs,
> >> 
> >> I'm working on some stuff in the CMake parser which involves changes
> >> to the lexer. It's written in flex, and currently taken unmodified
> >> from the CMake project.
> >> 
> >> We currently ship both the generated code (.c) and the flex source
> >> (.in.l) in the git repository. With current versions of flex, the
> >> .in.l file doesn't even work; and after fixing it, flex unsurprisingly
> >> generates a different .c than we have now.
> >> 
> >> It's being annoying to have to manually run flex to regenerate the .c
> >> between changing something and running 'make'. I think it would be
> >> better to ship only the .l file and run flex at compile time. But this
> >> would mean adding a required compile-time dependency on flex to
> >> kdevelop. What do you think about it? Is it an acceptable dep to add?
> >> Or should I just continue keeping the .l and .c in sync in every
> >> commit?
> > 
> > Do you think these changes will be frequent? I/we don't like lots of
> > dependencies - even if they are only at compile time.
> > 
> > Though from my experience of working on PHP I can completely understand
> > your pov. As changes to the grammar are very frequent in PHP I also made
> > the pg-qt
> > a compile time dependency to guard myself against forgetting to sync the
> > generated files.
> > 
> > Hence: If you think there will be multiple grammar changes in the future,
> > I think we should make flex a compile time dep.
> 
> I don't really think the changes will be frequent over time, and my
> local changes are mostly cleanup and C++ification, not changes to the
> actual token regexes. I also think the PHP parser is *way* more likely
> to change than the CMake lexer.
> 
> But, I have something like 20 local commits that are all changing the
> .l and the .c in sync. I once reordered two commits via rebase, and
> the generated code didn't actually correspond to the input file
> anymore, I basically had to rerun flex in the whole local history to
> get them back synced. Good thing I actually know git...
> 
> How about I add the flex dependency, and remove it if users complain
> about the new dep? :)

nah, this sounds rather like your own issue ;-)

i.e. if you'd have pushed your changes upstream sooner it wouldn't have been 
such a problem (or?).

and I can tell you that at least some of our users and even contributors will 
complain as far as I know them ;-)

so if it won't change anymore, keep it as-is...

bye
-- 
Milian Wolff
mail at milianw.de
http://milianw.de
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