Re: minimal version of bison for Gcc?

[Ben Elliston <bje at au1 dot ibm dot com>]

> It seems according to http://gcc.gnu.org/install/prerequisites.html that the
> minimal version of bison required in GCC (for those hacking the few .y
> files) is 1.28 (released in july 1999).
> 
> Is there a reason why a 2.x version of bison would not be acceptable? FWIW,
> I am not considering using bison in a frontend, but just to parse some kind
> of "scripts" or internal data inside a (usually unused) static analysis
> pass...

The minimum required version is 1.28.  The general wisdom appears to be
to set the minimum required version as low as possible (such that things
work!) so that as few developers are inconvenienced as possible.  This
means less package upgrading or building from source to get the minimum
specified tools onto your system.

Of course, there are sometimes good reasons for lifting the minimum
required version.  Earlier this year I proposed moving to a 2003 release
of flex and was convinced by others on this list that the benefits did
not sufficiently justify the headaches.

The minimum Bison version is 1.28.  What's stopping you from using a
version of your choice?

Cheers, Ben