On 8/15/07, Vincent Isambart <vincent.isambart / gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It seems ./configure did not detect the fact that bison was missing from
> > > my machine:
> >
> > IIRC it would try to use yacc otherwise, but your output makes me think
> > you are on Linux, and I'm not sure about whether it could use yacc anyway
> > if there is no bison...
>
> No, Ruby 1.9 requires bison, yacc is not enough.
>
> > > What? Do I need an installed ruby to build ruby from trunk or am I
> > > missing something else here?
> >
> > I'm not familiar enough with the details of the build process to
> > explain this, but I know from experience you don't need ruby to build ruby.
> > I seem to recall ruby making use of itself once built to do the final bits
> > of the build, and the install, but I don't really keep this stuff in my
> > head.  Hoping someone else who writes this stuff can jump in here!
>
> I am pretty sure Ruby 1.9 DOES require a working Ruby (though Ruby 1.8
> does not).
>
> Even though they are needed to compile the SVN version, bison or a
> working Ruby will probably not be necessary to build the release
> version.
>
> For the fact that configure does not complain it may be for this
> reason, but I am not sure. It could indeed complain if the bison or
> ruby generated files are not there.

I think trunk requires ruby to generate the respective vm files from
the instruction specs. This is a guess of course; I should spend some
time looking at the build output ;-). I would imagine that when formal
releases are made, those will come in a tar ball pre-generated in a
similar way to autoconf files and the configure scripts.

Brian.