flex needs spurious whitespace?

[Clint Jeffery]

Why does the first version of the whitespace comment eater below pass
flex with no complaints, while the second one generates errors?  Note
that the only difference is the absence of (seemingly needless) whitespace.
Is this a known bug?  It is not in the flex manual's "bugs" section.

Cheers,
Clint Jeffery, address@hidden

--- example flex input (foo.l) below this point.
%%
"/*" ([^*] | ("*" / [^/])) * "*/"       {/*do nothing. eat comments*/}
"/*"([^*]|("*"/[^/]))*"*/"      {/*do nothing. eat comments*/}