FLEX is a tool that generates programs for performing pattern-matching on text. It automates the conversion of regular expressions (RE) to nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) and NFA to deterministic finite automata (DFA), allowing developers to build lexical analyzers. The workflow involves writing rules in a .l file, FLEX generating a C file containing the scanner, and compiling that C file along with additional code to produce an executable that takes input and produces a sequence of tokens.