nawk portability problem (Was: Current CVS - test suite needs gawk???)

[Akim Demaille]

OK, so the problem is an AWK portability issue.  Since these guys are
maintainer tools, I won't fight to have them perfect.  But if you
could try to see what makes it unhappy, maybe there is a way out.

The problem is in finalize.awk.  To create it, just run

echo AC_INTI >configure.in
autoconf -d
and look for /tmp/ac*/finalize.awk

Here is the top of it.  It complains about line 7, and frankly, I
don't understand the error message.

     1  # Load the list of tokens which escape the forbidden patterns.
     2  BEGIN {
     3    # Be sure the read GAWK documentation to understand the parens
     4    # around `tmp "/forbidden.rx"'.
     5    while ((getline pattern < (tmp "/forbidden.rx")) > 0)
     6      forbidden = (forbidden ? forbidden "|" : "") pattern
     7    close (tmp "/forbidden.rx")
     8    if (verbose)
     9      errprint("autoconf: forbidden: " forbidden)
    10  
    11    while ((getline pattern < (tmp "/allowed.rx")) > 0)
    12      allowed = (allowed ? allowed "|" : "") pattern
    13    close (tmp "/allowed.rx")
    14    if (verbose)
    15      errprint("autoconf: allowed: " allowed)
    16  }

| nawk: Tempcell list is curdled
| nawk: Source line number 7

The stock nawk on Debian unstable works fine with this, and there is
not `curdled' in the man page.  Maybe the author can help us?