> What are the reasons for flagging the port of flex-2.5.4
> unsuitable for any netbsd of the platforms but SunOS? The version
> numbers of the interal flex binary and that generated by the
> port package are identical. Nevertheless, they produce different
> results... and only the external package produced appeared to be doing
> the right thing in case of kdevelop.

Flex is a part of the NetBSD base system. It is not a part of the
standard Solaris distribution, which uses the AT&T-derived lex from
SVR4. Hence we have a package that is meant for Solaris only.

If we enabled it on NetBSD, then it is purely path-dependent which
version of flex you would get - the one in /usr/bin, or the one in
${LOCALBASE}/bin.  I am not too fond of such lotteries, and would
prefer not to engage in them.

I think the Right Thing to do here is to fix the version of flex
in basesrc.  However, I'm just a package, and am not gifted enough
to do it.
 
> BTW: PR bin/8258 reported by Nick Hudson in Aug 99 seems to be
> related to this problem...

Cool - another pointer that we need to upgrade our version in
basesrc.

Regards,
Alistair