update and reformat installation instructions

1 files changed, 42 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index d103bd6..e9f19c6 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -2,40 +2,69 @@
 
 ## Should you be here at all?
 
-If building, developing or compiling C programs is new to you, you probably want to use your operating system's standard means of installing software to install flex. If you do not need the latest features of flex, you probably just want to use your operating system's standard means of installing software to obtain flex.
+If building, developing or compiling C programs is new to you, you
+probably want to use your operating system's standard means of
+installing software to install flex. If you do not need the latest
+features of flex, you probably just want to use your operating
+system's standard means of installing software to obtain flex.
 
 ## Now that you know you should be here ...
 
-If  you are not familiar with bootstrapping C code from a git repository or if GNU autotools seems like a jumble of tenuous incantationery to you, then make sure that you downloaded one of the release tar archives of flex. You can verify this by checking the filename of what you downloaded. If it is something like "flex-<version>.tar.<compressiontype>" then you have a release tar archives. If you have a filename like "flex.tar.gz" or "flex.zip", you have a copy of the git repository and you didn't download the thing you wanted to.
+If you are not familiar with bootstrapping C code from a git
+repository or if GNU autotools seems like a jumble of tenuous
+incantationery to you, then make sure that you downloaded one of the
+release tar archives of flex. You can verify this by checking the
+filename of what you downloaded. If it is something like
+"flex-<version>.tar.<compressiontype>" then you have a release tar
+archive. If you have a filename like "flex.tar.gz" or "flex.zip", you
+have a copy of the git repository and you didn't download the thing
+you wanted to.
 
 ## Building from a release archive
 
 To build flex from a release archive:
 
+```bash
 $ ./configure <any configure options you need>
 $ make
+```
 
 To see what options are available from the configure script:
 
+```bash
 $ ./configure --help
+```
 
 Optionally run the test suite:
 
+```bash
 $ make check
+```
 
 To install the flex you just built:
 
+```bash
 $ make install
+```
 
-Note that you may want to make use of the DESTDIR argument on the "make install" command line or that you may want to have used the "--prefix" argument with configure (or mostly equivalently the "prefix" argument on the make command line).
+Note that you may want to make use of the DESTDIR argument on the
+"make install" command line or that you may want to have used the
+"--prefix" argument with configure (or mostly equivalently the
+"prefix" argument on the make command line).
 
 ## Building from the git repository
 
 To build from the git repository:
 
-First, make sure you have a copy of flex installed somewhere on your path so that configure can find it. You can usually do this with your operating system's standard means of installing software. Sometimes, you have to build from a recent release of flex, however.
+First, make sure you have a copy of flex installed somewhere on your
+path so that configure can find it. You can usually do this with your
+operating system's standard means of installing software. Sometimes,
+you have to build from a recent release of flex, however. Using a
+version of flex built from the flex codebase is always acceptable if
+you have already bootstrapped doing so.
 
-You will also need all the programs that flex needs in order to be built from scratch --
+You will also need all the programs that flex needs in order to be
+built from scratch:
 
 * compiler suite - flex is built with gcc
 * bash, or a good Bourne-style shell
@@ -43,6 +72,7 @@ You will also need all the programs that flex needs in order to be built from sc
 * GNU bison;  to generate parse.c from parse.y
 * autoconf; for handling the build system
 * automake; for Makefile generation
+* make; for running the generated Makefiles
 * gettext; for i18n support
 * help2man; to generate the flex man page
 * tar, gzip, lzip, etc.; for packaging of the source distribution
@@ -60,8 +90,13 @@ configure.ac will specify the minimum required versions.
 
 Then:
 
+```bash
 $ ./autogen.sh
+```
 
-After autogen.sh finishes successfully, building flex follows the same steps as building flex from a release archive.
+After autogen.sh finishes successfully, building flex follows the same
+steps as building flex from a release archive.
 
-Note that, in addition to "make check", "make distcheck" builds a release archive and builds and tests flex from inside a directory containing only known distributed files.
+Note that, in addition to "make check", "make distcheck" builds a
+release archive and builds and tests flex from inside a directory
+containing only known distributed files.