IntelliJ Community 12 CE + JFlex

Question

I'm following this tutorial to create a custom language plugin for IntelliJ 12, but I'm running into several issues in regards to the jFlex plugin.

When the plugin was installed (via IntelliJ plugin browser) it was configured with the following paths:

• Flex: /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 12 CE.app/tools/jflex
• Flex Skeleton: /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 12 CE.app/tools/jflex/idea-flex.skeleton

IntelliJ warned me it could not find the jFlex application, so I downloaded the latest zip package from jflex.de and extracted it. I updated the jFlex plugin configurations in IntelliJ and get a new error when I try to build: ./lib/jflex.jar is not configured on the path.

• Flex: /Users/skyler/jflex-1.4.3/jflex-1.4.3/bin
• Flex Skeleton: /Users/skyler/jflex-1.4.3/jflex-1.4.3/src/default.skeleton

I did confirm the jar exists in /Users/skyler/jflex-1.4.3/jflex-1.4.3/lib. Of course the path referenced in the error would not find the jar.

So here are my questions:

1. Where is the idea-flex.skeleton file located? I cannot find it.
2. Do I need to update the jflex executable so the paths are correct, or move the file, and will there be any problems using jflex for language plugin development with this change?

Answer 1

As it turns out IntelliJ was missing the tools directory when you use the Mac installer. To solve the problem I had to clone the git repository for IntelliJ community and copy the jflex folder and skeleton into the expected locations. This issue is tracked by JetBrains.

http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-110168