this is what the out put shows

root:/sources/bison-1.875# ./configure --prefix=/usr
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for strerror in -lcposix... no
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for egrep... grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking minix/config.h usability... no
checking minix/config.h presence... no
checking for minix/config.h... no
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking for flex... no
checking for lex... no
checking for yywrap in -lfl... no
checking for yywrap in -ll... no
checking for bison... no
checking for byacc... no
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for gm4... no
checking for gnum4... no
checking for m4... no
checking whether m4 supports frozen files... no
configure: error: GNU M4 1.4 is required

I installed m4-1.4 as in the previous page by following all steps on p137(in pdf file)
all check passed during make check but i do get the above error when configuring bison as on page 138... what can i do?

Where did you install m4? Check it's in /usr/bin
On a side note, can you copy and paste from a .pdf file? I've had good results working from html as I can open it in Firebird and copy it into a terminal. It helps to avoid typo errors. That's why I find the hardest part of Linux From Scratch is starting Beyond LFS as it's all at the command prompt with no Firebird till I get X windows (and a few other things- gtk2) up.
Go back and re-do M4. Check you havent installed it in /ussr/bin or /ur/bin something. Typo errors can really screw you up. Try Then make a temporary folder in your home directory, untar a fresh copy and configure it with --prefix=~/tmp and install it in there. That way you can see all the files it's installed which makes it easier to hunt down whatever you've installed in the wrong place, if that is the problem.

when installing m4... i did

./configure --prefix=/usr

(i did remove the m4-1.4 and bison-1.875 source directories several times and untar'd it and followed steps in p137 all over again - but to no avail)

how ever i ln -s /usr/bin/m4 /bin/m4

and the configure script ran without any problem and was able to do "make" how ever during "make check" it gave an error about "autom4te" was missing... so i copied this from the host system (slackware 9.1 running kernel 2.4.24) and ran
and ln -s /usr/bin/autom4te /bin/autom4te

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make check

where it said failed to compile autom4te... then i remove the link and the autom4te file from /usr/bin and /bin directories... and ran

make check

and it all ran without giving any error's and was able to install bison

(all the above commands were executed in the /sources/bison-1.875 directory)

but slightly concerned now that what i did above would cause problems in the future...

Sorry my ramblings above were way off target. Did you apply the bison-1.875-attribute.patch before you compiled bison?

It sounds to me, if
ln -s /usr/bin/m4 /bin/m4
fixes the problem it seems that /usr/bin isn't in your $PATH. As for copying things from your host system...don't go there. Error messages are a sign that there's something wrong that needs fixing. Find out what's wrong, fix it and then go back to installing m4 and bison again so that it gets done properly. try
echo $PATH
and see what your $PATH is.

thanks mate... i'll have to read through chpater five and six again to see ...

yeah i did apply the patch...

yeah mate u were right... coz knowing will have to do chroot many times... had a script to do if for me and in the script instead of

/usr/bin i had typed usr/bin

well luckily only used the script after binutils was installed... so will have to re compile and install from zlib-1.1.4 onwards

thanks for your help again