Remove flex version checks

Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>

Commit: 0869ea43e9c2257819e5c8719e28fe3b5c527911
Author: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Date: 2025-01-17T08:30:42Z
Releases: 18.0
Remove flex version checks

Remove the flex version checks from configure and meson.  The cutoff
versions are all so ancient that this is no longer relevant, and what
the actual cutoff should be is a bit fuzzy.

This also removes the ancient behavior that configure would also
accept a "lex" program if it is actuall flex.  This aligns the check
with meson in this respect.

For future reference, as of this commit, these are relevant flex
versions:

- The hard required minimum is flex 2.5.34 as of commit b1ef48980dd,
  but this has not actually been tested.

- Prior to this, the minimum enforced by configure/meson was flex
  2.5.35, which is the oldest present in the buildfarm right now.

- As of commit 6fdd5d95634, the oldest version that will compile
  without warnings due to flex-generated code is flex 2.5.36.

- The oldest version that probably still has some practical relevance
  is flex 2.5.37, which ships with CentOS/RHEL 7.

Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/1a204ccd-7ae6-478c-a431-407b5c48ccc6@eisentraut.org

Files

PathChange+/−
config/programs.m4 modified +5 −46
configure modified +53 −44
doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml modified +6 −8
meson.build modified +1 −1
src/backend/utils/misc/guc-file.l modified +1 −1

Documentation touched

Discussion