1This is flex, the fast lexical analyzer generator.
2
3flex is a tool for generating scanners: programs which recognize
4lexical patterns in text.
5
6More information about flex as well as the latest official release of
7flex can be found at:
8
9http://flex.sourceforge.net/
10
11Bug reports should be submitted using the SourceForge Bug Tracker for
12flex at:
13
14http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=97492&atid=618177
15
16The flex codebase is kept in git at:
17
18https://github.com/westes/flex
19
20There are several mailing lists available as well:
21
22flex-announce@lists.sourceforge.net - where posts will be made
23announcing new releases of flex.
24
25flex-help@lists.sourceforge.net - where you can post questions about
26using flex
27
28flex-devel@lists.sourceforge.net - where you can discuss development of
29flex itself
30
31Find information on subscribing to the mailing lists at:
32
33http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=97492
34
35The flex distribution contains the following files which may be of interest:
36
37README - This file.
38
39NEWS - current version number and list of user-visible changes.
40
41INSTALL - basic installation information.
42
43ABOUT-NLS - description of internationalization support in flex.
44
45COPYING - flex's copyright and license.
46
47doc/ - user documentation.
48
49examples/ - containing examples of some possible flex scanners and a
50few other things. See the file examples/README for more details.
51
52TODO - outstanding bug reports, desired features, etc.
53
54tests/ - regression tests. See TESTS/README for details.
55
56po/ - internationalization support files.
57
58You need the following tools to build flex from the maintainer's
59repository:
60
61compiler suite - flex is built with gcc
62bash, or a good Bourne-style shell
63m4 - m4 -p needs to work; GNU m4 and a few others are suitable
64GNU bison;  to generate parse.c from parse.y
65autoconf 2.69; for handling the build system
66automake 1.12.2; for Makefile generation
67gettext 0.18; fori18n support
68help2man 1.36; to generate the flex man page
69tar, gzip, etc.; for packaging of the source distribution
70GNU texinfo 498;  to build and test the flex manual
71GNU indent 2.8; for indenting the flex source the way we want it done
72
73Once you have all the necessary tools installed, life becomes
74simple. To prepare the flex tree for building, run the script:
75
76$ ./autogen.sh
77
78in the top level of the flex source tree.
79This script calls the various tools needed to get flex ready for the
80GNU-style configure script to be able to work.
81
82From this point on, building flex follows the usual configure, make,
83make install routine.
84
85This file is part of flex.
86
87This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
88Vern Paxson.
89
90The United States Government has rights in this work pursuant
91to contract no. DE-AC03-76SF00098 between the United States
92Department of Energy and the University of California.
93
94Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
95modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
96are met:
97
981. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
99   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
1002. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
101   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
102   documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
103
104Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
105may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
106without specific prior written permission.
107
108THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
109IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
110WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
111PURPOSE.
112
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114