diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/ragel/default.nix b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/ragel/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f60d32f09ea2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/tools/parsing/ragel/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+{composableDerivation, fetchurl, transfig, texLive}:
+
+let
+  version = "6.3";
+  name = "ragel-${version}";
+in
+
+composableDerivation.composableDerivation {
+  initial = rec {
+    inherit name;
+    src = fetchurl {
+      url = "http://www.complang.org/ragel/${name}.tar.gz";
+      sha256 = "018cedc8a68be85cda330fc53d0bb8a1ca6ad39b1cf790eed0311e7baa5a2520";
+    };
+
+    flags = {
+      doc = {
+        # require fig2dev & pdflatex (see README)
+        buildInputs = [transfig texLive];
+        # use post* because default values of buildPhase is empty.
+        postBuild = ''
+          pushd doc
+          make
+          popd
+        '';
+        postInstall = ''
+          pushd doc
+          make install
+          popd
+        '';
+      };
+    };
+
+    cfg = {
+      docSupport = false;
+    };
+
+    meta = {
+      homepage = http://www.complang.org/ragel;
+      description = "State machine compiler";
+      license = "GPL-2";
+    };
+  };
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 367bfae51dd0..366a743d377e 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -2533,6 +2533,10 @@ let
       inherit fetchurl stdenv;
     });
 
+  ragel = import ../development/tools/parsing/ragel {
+    inherit composableDerivation fetchurl transfig texLive;
+  };
+
   # couldn't find the source yet
   selenium_rc_binary = import ../development/tools/selenium/remote-control {
     inherit fetchurl stdenv unzip;